While department stores were among the defining institutions of Japanese pre- and post-war consumer culture, their sales and market shares have fallen in the post-bubble period, forcing companies to close some stores and to generally rethink their business models
Over the course of the twentieth century, most Middle East states adopted a shari'a-based system for recognizing marriages. Partly in reaction to these dynamics, new types of marriage that evade the control of the state and religious authorities have emerged.