They were just happy she was finally getting married.

An increasing number of Japanese women are delaying or skipping marriage altogether. But for those who still want romance, younger men are an increasingly trendy option.

Tales of women pairing off with "toshishita" (younger) men are being told in a rash of recent books, articles in women's magazines and even a TV drama called "Suppli" -- named after popular health supplement tablets.

The growing financial independence of Japanese women makes relationships with younger men a more feasible option these days in a land where wives traditionally relied on husbands for economic sustenance.

"Marriage used to be for a livelihood," said Kaori Haishi, 40, who has written two books on the topic and whose own husband, Yasushi, is 34. "Now it's for having a partner with whom you can walk through life together."

Marriages in which the bride is older than the groom accounted for almost one-third of all weddings in 2002, up from just under 18 percent in 1987, according to a survey by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

Women are waiting longer to marry -- the average age for first marriages jumped to 29.8 in 2005 from 25.9 in 1992 -- while the percentage of unmarried women in their early thirties rose to 32 percent last year from around 14 percent in 1990.

The factors are complex, but in part the feminine aversion to marriage reflects a gap between women's rising status at work and the deep-rooted notion that they should be subservient in relationships with men, said social commentator Rika Kayama.

"As a result, women who are competent in work and who have high incomes find it difficult to find husbands and partners," she said.

Daisuke Inoue of Good Will Planning Ltd., a dating agency that organises parties for meeting potential partners, said about half the agency's female clients in their 30s sign up to meet younger men and the number looks set to rise.

TRENDY STATUS SYMBOL

"The reason more women are choosing younger men is because there are growing numbers of women who feel their own worth doesn't come from their partner's financial power or status, but is something they have to achieve themselves," Kayama said.

Japanese women are no longer expected to quit work upon marriage. While they lag their sisters in many other advanced countries, a 1986 Equal Employment Opportunity Law removed many formal barriers to their pursuit of careers.

Dating a younger man might once have been cause for embarrassment, but Mika Tsukuda, 35, whose husband is 29, says her friends see dating a younger guy as "a kind of status symbol".

Women reluctant to be bound by traditional wifely roles find the more flexible attitudes of younger men appealing.

"All the older men I've dated told me they wanted me to quit my job," said Haishi, who has been married for eight years.

"They all wanted me to stay at home and have children, but he was the only one who didn't say that."

Tsukuda said many men she had dated seemed to have been put off by her take-charge personality.

"I'm not living just to be liked by somebody. I want to be myself," she said over tea with husband Takashi in a Tokyo cafe.

Not everything is rosy for older women who wed younger men.

Kaori and Yasushi Haishi found that conservative Japanese bankers looked askance when they sought a housing loan.

"They didn't lend us the money because the norm from their perspective is that the man is older, the woman is younger, and the woman belongs in the home," she said.

"In these cases, they look at the husband's income".

Women planning to marry younger men don't always run into resistance from family or friends.

Shimizu said her parents were more worried about her fiance than her when she told them her wedding plans. "I think they thought: is it okay for him, even though he's so young?"

Takashi Tsukuda sees another upside for an older woman marrying a younger guy -- less chance she'll be left a lonely widow.

"The average difference in life expectancy between men and woman is seven years ... so we can die together", he said.