Il Giappone di Puccini tra scoperta e Legal Orientalism

Madama Butterfly is one of the most famous operas by Giacomo Puccini. Set in Japan in 1904, it depicts the tragic love story between B.F. Pinkerton, an officer in the US Navy, and Cio-cio-san (also called Madama Butterfly), a young Japanese girl from Nagasaki. The libretto (written by Giacosa e Illica – one of whom happened to be a lawyer) is quite interesting from a jurist’s perspective as it mentions several legal. The pivotal point in the opera is the marriage between the officer and the young Japanese lady. Questions arise about the law applicable to the marriage itself (including the formalities required), that applicable to the matrimonial life and, more importantly, whether Pinkerton was allowed to unilaterally divorce by abandoning the conjugal house, an option in his view permitted by Japanese law (but of course not allowed under the law of the USA). In the opera, the validity of this option is taken for granted, but a legal, technical analysis leads to a different conclusion. This chapter investigates in detail the legal aspects of Madama Butterfly, considering the applicable law in Japan in 1904: in particular, the Civil Code of 1898 (Minpō), the Japanese Code of Private International Law (Hōrei) and the Nationality Law (Kokuseki hō). The story of Pinkerton and Butterfly will be analyzed through the lenses of law to find answers to the following questions: was their marriage validly performed? Which law regulated their marital life? And most of all: did the law in 1904 grant the husband the ability to unilaterally divorce through abandonment?