TIL: In Japan, if your spouse dies you can divorce your in-laws

Posthumous divorce’s technical but less popular name is a “notification of marital relationship termination” (inzoku kankei shuryo todoke) which means one is officially severing ties with the family of a deceased spouse. What’s particularly strange about it is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose for a vast majority of people aside from a government-approved official statement that someone finds their in-laws unbearable.