Women in Japan may have made great strides in deciding how they live their lives, but such freedom has yet to translate into their final resting place.

Take for example a 60-year-old Saitama Prefecture woman whose husband passed away a year ago. She tried to acquire her own grave at a temple in Saitama but was refused on the grounds she had no offspring to inherit it.

"I don't want to be buried in my husband's family grave in the Kansai region because I don't feel I belong there," the woman said. "I also hate thinking that my mother-in-law, who often picked on me, might still treat me like her son's wife after I die (if we are in the same grave.)"

This woman's case may be extreme, but demands such as hers are increasing as the family structure changes and people think more seriously about burial issues, according to Koji Okazaki, president of a headstone company in Gunma Prefecture.

In April, his company will open Cosmo Hills, a large memorial tower in Mie Prefecture for women where inheritance will not be an issue. After 50 years, the remains of those placed in individual compartments will be transferred to a joint charnel in the tower.

Cosmo Hills will have charnels that can accommodate a combined 6,000 sets of remains. About 20 women have already signed up to have their ashes kept there, and many others have been seeking information, Okazaki said.

According to Midori Kotani, a researcher at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute who specializes in death and burial matters, most Japanese families own a grave that is handed down through generations, usually by sons. A married woman is traditionally buried in her husband's family grave.

"Temples and cemeteries consider successors mandatory for traditional graves, and can refuse to sell them to people without children," she said. "Some temples will not let women be buried in their own parents' grave if they had divorced or had no children."

While there have been graveyards since ancient times that do not require the deceased to have heirs, they are for people who die in anonymity or who have no known next of kin. New "inheritance-free" graves, which first began to appear some 15 years ago, may be the answer for many people who do not fit in the traditional category, Kotani said.

One such group is women who seek "anoyo rikon," her self-coined term that translates into "divorce after death."

She said these women, generally due to financial reasons or for the sake of children, stayed with husbands who may have abused them or engaged in extramarital affairs.

They can only be liberated from their spouses when they die, she said.

Okazaki of the headstone firm observed that Cosmo Hills will also attract women who have offspring but do not want to burden them with the slew of religious rituals associated with traditional graves.

Career-minded single women who have little contact with siblings have also sought information about the memorial tower for the same reason, he added.

Okazaki claimed the main reason he got into the women's grave business was because of the social complexities women face when it comes time for burial, unlike men, who are less likely to be concerned about what happens after death. He also noted that Cosmo Hills will be affordable.

"It's true that men are more likely to inherit graves, but even if that were not the case, men for some reason believe someone will always take care of (their remains) after they die," he said. "Women are more realistic and want to make sure they have a satisfactory final resting place."

And women have good reason to be concerned.

Statistics show many women now do not fit into the traditional norm of "married with children" as assumed by cemeteries and temples.

The 2000 census showed 38 percent of women in Tokyo between the ages of 30 and 34 were single. In six of the capital's 23 wards, including Shibuya, the figure exceeded 50 percent.

Based on the number of women who were single at age 50, the same survey also estimated that 5.8 percent of all women in Japan would never marry.

Okazaki said Cosmo Hills' affordability will be a draw. While even the cheapest graves in rural areas can cost as much as 3 million yen, 120,000 yen can secure space at Cosmo Hills' joint charnel, with even the most expensive individual compartments costing only 980,000 yen, he said.

"Although hidden under such beautiful words like 'religion' and 'family warmth,' temples and traditional graveyards are very much after money," Okazaki maintained. "They ask for a successor because then, relatives of the dead are incorporated into a system where they keep paying for rituals like memorial services."

Some nonprofit organizations are also offering graves solely for women.

Writer and singer Junko Matsubara, 56, runs the NPO Single Smile Senior Life Network for Independent Women, which provides women with information on how to live independently.

"Everyone comes into the world alone and dies alone, so we should all be able to live without relying on others," she said.

But while the 550 members of her group seem to lead active, independent lives, she has come to realize that many are concerned about what happens when their time draw to a close.

In 2000, the NPO bought a joint plot for members in a graveyard in the western Tokyo suburb of Fuchu. It has no inheritance requirement, so single or childless women can be buried there.

So far, 160 of the group's members have each paid 200,000 yen to be buried at the site, and three already are interred there, she said.

"We don't do much apart from the yearly get-together at the grave, where we drink wine and remember the dead," she said. "But the grave serves as a symbol that gives members a feeling of future security."

Kotani of Dai-ichi Life Research Institute welcomes such moves, saying the traditional grave inheritance system no longer fits society, and a wider range of choices is necessary.

She pointed to the need to have a system where everyone, including those who do not fit the traditional social mold, can have equal access to a grave. Such a system should also provide other services related to death, she said.

"One good example is an NPO in Sugamo (in Toshima Ward) that also provides services like settlement of property and cremation if a member requires it," she said. "Not only women, but gay people and couples who could not marry due to family opposition are also members.

"A society where interpersonal relationships are rapidly waning needs not only to reduce the burden of temple rituals for families, but also to shoulder the role of the family itself," Kotani said.