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.
Do you have any legal responsibilities towards your in-laws in either direction in Japan?
And can your in-laws also divorce you, when your partner- their child dies?