She loved to travel, was a great skier and was talented with languages. I figured she'd end up in some high diplomatic position in Japan. When I heard from her after she went back to Japan, her parents had married her off to an older man, and she was a stay at home mom. She was miserable, but just took it as the way things are. What a loss for Japan...and her.

The older man was probably rich, and he probably offered a good standard of living for her.
The older man will die long before her and she will have the means to explore life.
Or she believed there was no way she could disrespect her parents.

He was not an old man, just a lot older than her. With Japan's famous longevity, chances are he will not die for a long, long time. When he does die, she can resume her travels, but she will have foregone a career by that time.

Sadly, she married a man she did not love, although she did respect him. She was in love with an American boy she met in our high school.

Loved their spouses before marriage. They had not even met more than a month or 2 before marriage. The introduction was done after extensive analysis of the potential spouses education, family reputation, career potential, hereditary diseases etc. All of these my older siblings had happy married lives, no one got divorced. But that was in India in 1940's & 50's. I was 11 years younger than my nearest sibling. I immigrated to US at age 20, married twice in US, both times it was intense mutual love, but ended with 2 divorces. My conclusion is that love is not the best criterion, involvement by wiser parents works better.

Would your parents have arranged a marriage with the boy in the pieced together hand me down car and thrift store clothes and with really loving parents!

My husband is the kindest, most hard working, cleverest person I have ever met.

Tikki

The process involved finding about the other family, especially existence of hereditary diseases.
And if the parents were looking for a groom for their daughter, he had to be potentially a good provider.

After that the families got together usually at the bride's house. The prospective couple spent a few hours together to get to know each other. If the outlook was favorable, there would be 1-2-3 follow up get together's. By that time either it was go or no go. Both the prospective groom and bride had the final say whether to go ahead with marriage or not. All my siblings except one sister went through several mutual rejections before they accepted marriage proposal. The one sister already knew the boy while attending college together and both families knew each other well.

I wanted to go through the same process as my siblings but while I had a good job in US, my visa status was not yet permanent and I liked living in US and did not want to take a chance. I met my first wife in Chicago and she was an immigrant as well from Sweden. Only common language between us was English!

In India each caste and each community had different methods of arriving at marriage. But that was back in 1950's and 60's. I am sure it has changed much, and may not be for better, because there are many more divorces now. In that era it was not enough to be kind and considerate as jobs were few and without good job or business one would be living a very depraved life. Money mattered a lot to be able to live a decent life. Now India is much more prosperous so again things have changed.

When my brother was stationed in Japan, he met a Japanese woman who was extremely smart, but working as a bank teller. At the time (early 1980s) that was probably the end of the line for her, career-wise.

Instead, she married my brother, and followed him back to Washington, DC. Within a few years, she was vice-director of the World Bank for Asia. It seems no one in Japan remembered to tell the World Bank what their expected limitations for women were.

Even 70s

It has taken a long time here, it will take longer there.

We're still not equal here.

..... which was interesting.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/11/06/commentary/japan-commentary/japan-center-asias-women-problem/#.XKqxz5hKj40