Latest news with #ImperialHouseLaw
21-07-2025
- Politics
Wedding Woes: The Real Crisis Facing the Imperial Household
For decades, ensuring a stable succession to the throne has been one of the most stubborn challenges facing the Japanese political system, with the law allowing only males born to a father from the imperial lineage to succeed, and only one male child—Prince Hisahito, who arrived in 2006—being born into the family since the birth of his father, Crown Prince Fumihito, in 1965. The only child of the current emperor and empress is Princess Aiko, now 23. As a woman, she is not eligible to take the throne. Following lengthy talks between the ruling and opposition parties, it was hoped that the leadership of both chambers of the Diet could get a proposal for reforming the Imperial House Law through the regular session that ended in late June 2025. But these talks broke down, and the prospects for a short-term resolution of the issue have receded. The main points of the proposals have been twofold: first, to allow female members of the family to retain their royal status after marriage, and second, to adopt male descendants in the male lineage of former branches of the imperial line back into the family to increase the number of male heirs. By the end of May, the two leaders of the discussions—Asō Tarō, senior advisor to the Liberal Democrat Party, and Noda Yoshihiko, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party—had agreed to shelve the second proposal because of constitutional concerns and widespread public disagreement, and decided to prioritize the idea of allowing female members of the family to retain their status after marriage. Even on this proposal, however, the two men differed on a number of key issues, including whether retaining royal status should be optional or automatic, and whether the woman's husband and children should also be granted royal status. Nevertheless, they agreed to push forward in the hope of making at least some progress on an issue that has remained stagnant for years. Then, at the start of June, progress ground to a halt when Asō suddenly announced that he couldn't agree to shelving the second proposal after all. He remained wedded to the idea of bringing back descendants of former royals to the imperial family. Noda responded by accusing his counterpart of overturning the negotiating table and undoing all the progress they had made. Nukaga Fukushirō, speaker of the House of Representatives, has declared that he hopes to reach an agreement during the extraordinary Diet session in the fall, but frankly this seems unlikely. Having followed the political debate over the imperial succession for the past 20 years, I believe that the real position of the LDP, swayed by the staunch convictions of party conservatives who are insistent on male succession, is to do nothing. From their point of view, the current Imperial House Law, which clearly enshrines the principle of patrilineal male succession, represents the best possible arrangement, and there is no need for any change. But if the ruling party continues to insist on male-line succession, it is quite likely that the imperial house will dwindle into extinction. The number of imperial family members is already clearly in serious decline. Public opinion surveys consistently show high levels of support for a female emperor. The LDP knows that it can't simply do nothing. To give itself political cover, it goes through the motions of assembling expert panels and holding discussions with the opposition, only to end up by grumbling at the results, derailing the talks, and postponing a decision until some unspecified time in the future. Although it frequently raises the possibility of reinstating male descendants of former branches of the imperial family, it has not carried out any meaningful studies on how this might work, or shown any other evidence of genuine enthusiasm for the idea, almost certainly because it has no intention of actually seeing the plan through. This doesn't mean that they are prepared to simply sit and wait for the imperial house to go extinct through natural decline. My guess is that deep down, most of them feel that the issue is not their responsibility. They are happy to let the politicians of the future deal with it when the situation gets really serious. For anyone genuinely concerned about the future of the imperial family, it is a dispiriting situation. The samurai and painter Watanabe Kazan (1793–1841) once said: 'Don't get so caught up in short-term maneuverings that you forget to plan for a hundred years in the future.' Unfortunately, few of our politicians today have the wisdom to heed this advice. Prince Mikasa's Prescient Warning Realistically, however, what would have happened even if this latest series of talks had led to an agreement to revise the Imperial House Law to allow women to succeed in the future? I don't think it would have done much to change the reality of the crisis facing the imperial succession. Why? Because the biggest problem is not really whether the person who succeeds is male or female, but whether that person is able to marry. The real crisis is that members of the imperial family—of both sexes—struggle to find suitable spouses. Japan's total fertility rate, as published by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare in June 2024, was just 1.15, the lowest ever. Research suggests that 80% of the decline in births is due to people not getting married. As well as economic factors, changing views of marriage and the family also play a role. Around 1990, the proportion of people who remained unmarried throughout their lives was around 5% for both men and women. In a survey in 2020, this had risen to around 30% for men and around 20% for women. Until the war, the extended imperial family and aristocracy provided a ready supply of potential marriage partners. Today, the imperial family has to seek partners from the general population. It is therefore unavoidable that the 'marriage ice age' will affect its members just as much as anyone else. One of the first to warn about the coming lack of marriage partners was the late Takahito, Prince Mikasa, one of the elder statemen of the imperial family. Appearing on a radio program in 2004 to mark his eighty-eighth birthday, Prince Mikasa spoke about the hardships endured by his mother, Empress Teimei, when she entered the imperial family and had to adapt to palace customs and protocols. He warned that, with the modern mass media stirring up such a fuss about the imperial family, most ordinary people would shrink from taking on such a role in the future. He foresaw that things were only likely to get worse. 'For a person from ordinary society to marry into the imperial family is an extremely difficult thing. In the United Kingdom, a nation somewhat similar to ours in terms of having a royal system, in the case of Queen Elizabeth, they were able to look for suitable candidates from the royal families and nobility. But Japan's old aristocracy was scrapped after the war. Looking back on it now, this was a move undertaken on the fringes of efforts to reform Japan's emperor system. As a result, though, even if we allow female emperors, the problem is that it might be difficult to find anyone willing to marry them in modern Japan.' Prince Mikasa was in favor of a female tennō , saying that 'obviously it would be no problem to have an empress,' but he had his doubts about how successful the system would be. 'As a practical issue, how would it work? There wouldn't be much point in allowing women to take the throne if the system petered out after just one empress. I think this is the major problem,' he said, predicting that a shortage of marriage partners would soon become the biggest challenge facing the imperial family. There has been an increase in public discourse around the possibility of a female emperor in recent years, partly driven by the rising popularity of Princess Aiko, the only child of the current emperor and empress. Many people now openly support the idea of changing the law to allow Aiko to succeed her father one day. Perhaps conscious of this, many Diet members, people particularly in the opposition parties, have taken to hedging their bets by claiming that although they support the idea of an empress regnant, they remain opposed to the idea of a female line of descent. It seems likely that this fudge is designed to avoid accusations of gender discrimination. This position is one that would be welcomed by most of those who insist on maintaining male-line descent. Under this scheme, although Princess Aiko would be allowed to take the throne as an empress regnant, any children she had with a commoner husband would be barred from inheriting the throne. This kind of 'cul-de-sac' empress would therefore bring about no real change to the principle of descent through the male line. Making the Palace a More Human Environment But the people who advocate this position do not seem to realize that it would involve ignoring the human rights of imperial successors and their spouses, and that this would only make the constricted path of succession even narrower than it already is. If children born to an empress regnant are not allowed to inherit the throne, how will she, her husband, and their children understand the meaning of their roles? Perhaps some of these people should ask themselves how they would feel in the same situation. The issue is equally serious for both men and women, but the challenges are likely to be especially acute in the case of men who marry an empress regnant or other female royal, given that there is no precedent for male commoners to marry into the imperial family. A look at the situation in other countries gives us an idea of what might happen. In the Netherlands, before the present king took the throne, there were three successive queens. Prince Claus, the husband of Queen Beatrix, suffered from depression. Prince Bernhard, the consort of her predecessor, Queen Juliana, was embroiled in a scandal when it was revealed that he had accepted bribes during the Lockheed affair. I don't mean to suggest that because of all these potential difficulties we should simply give up on the idea of an empress regnant as too difficult. However, in a society like Japan's, where for generations women have been confined to the role of housewife, we need to think more carefully about what it might mean for men to marry into the imperial family as consorts to a reigning empress or other female royals. Likely challenges would include lingering ties from a man's previous life and career, along with deeper existential concerns about his place and purpose. The position of Masako, herself a diplomat and career woman before she married into the family, may offer an idea of the kind of difficulties that male consorts might face in the future. She suffered well-documented mental health issues and, as the law currently stands, her only child is barred from taking the throne. To repeat: the shortage of suitable spouses is a problem for men and women alike. In addition to the concerns raised by Prince Mikasa about media attention, the situation today is made even worse by the rise of online information and social media. The weekly magazines may brazenly mix fact and fiction in their reporting, but I still believe that as part of the long history of print journalism, they retain at least a minimal sense of moral standards. Social media, by contrast, is a different beast—a space where no one takes responsibility for what is true and false. Anonymous users broadcast their views to huge audiences in a largely unsupervised space where there is no one to draw the line, no sense of responsibility, and little sign of moral scruples. Unlike ordinary citizens, members of the imperial family do not reply to criticisms and do not file lawsuits for defamation. Some people even seem to take a perverse pleasure in attacking the institution of the imperial family precisely because it cannot defend itself. We have all seen attacks in the media and online directed at Empress Michiko, Empress Masako, and Prince Akishino and his family following Princess Mako's engagement to Komuro Kei. How many people would not shrink back in fear when they imagined themselves, a relative, or a close friend, marrying into the imperial household? Perhaps we have been indifferent for too long to the obvious fact that the imperial family are human beings. And perhaps this indifference is now circling around to bring a crisis that threatens the very survival of the emperor as the symbol of national unity. If we want to see the symbolic role of the emperor continue, we must take urgent steps to transform the imperial household into a place that feels more human—one that ordinary people can enter without fearing for their happiness and mental health. If we continue to impose systems, environments, and burdens of obedience that would be intolerable to most people, we will only accelerate the demise of our long-lived imperial line. (Originally published in Japanese. Banner photos: Prince Hisahito, at left, the only son of the Akishino family, and Princess Aiko, the only daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako. © Jiji.)
The Mainichi
11-06-2025
- Politics
- The Mainichi
Editorial: Japan's ruling LDP lacks sense of urgency over securing Imperial Family members
Discussions between Japan's ruling and opposition parties over measures to secure the number of Imperial Family members have hit a snag, and it is expected that they will forgo reaching consensus in this Diet session. The Imperial House Law stipulates that female Imperial Family members are to leave the family upon marriage. As the number of Imperial Household members dwindles, there are concerns that so will their activities at this rate. This is an issue that affects the foundation of this nation. The governing parties seem to lack a sense of urgency, for they are not putting their full effort into building a consensus over the matter. All the parties share the view that female Imperial Family members should be allowed to retain their status after marriage. However, the parties failed to reach an agreement after the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) remained at odds over whether to allow their husbands and children to join the Imperial Family. What stood out was the LDP's obstinate attitude. The CDP takes the position that the parties should consider giving the husbands and children of those female members the Imperial status. If their marriage is treated equally to that of male Imperial Family members, differences will not arise in status within a family. The LDP, meanwhile, argues that the husbands and children of those female members should not be granted the Imperial status, as the party is wary this will "give rise to the birth of emperors of female lineage who have no emperor on their father's side, raising the possibility of breaking the tradition of having emperors of the male lineage." Under that scenario, the husbands and children would be allowed to freely engage in political, economic and religious activities as commoners, which critics say could lead to political exploitation of the Imperial Family. The LDP also refused the scenario of the parties agreeing only to allow female members to retain Imperial status upon marriage while shelving the treatment of their husbands and children's status. The LDP showed no willingness to make even a step toward resolving the longstanding issue. The LDP has stuck to a proposal to allow males of the male lineage from the former Imperial branch families to be adopted into the Imperial Family. However, giving special treatment to former Imperial branch families alone could lead to "discrimination by family origin" prohibited under the Constitution of Japan. The issue of Imperial succession, to begin with, was not among the topics for discussion in this Diet session. Of the six Imperial Family members younger than Emperor Naruhito's generation, Prince Hisahito, the only son of Crown Prince Akishino (Fumihito), is the only male with the right to succeed to the Imperial Throne. For the Imperial Household system to be sustainable, discussion over whether to allow female emperors and emperors of female lineage is unavoidable. There is no need to block future options at this point. The Constitution stipulates that the Emperor is "the symbol of the unity of the people" and "derives his position from the will of the people." It is a political responsibility to work out an agreement that can win support from a broad segment of the public.
Arab Times
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
Japan's palace confirms former princess Mako has first baby
TOKYO, May 31, (AP): Former Japanese princess Mako Komuro has given birth to her first child, palace officials confirmed Friday, though they gave no details, saying she is no longer a royal member. The Imperial Household Agency said both the mother and child are in good health, but did not disclose the baby's date of birth or gender. The former princess, 33, is a niece of Emperor Naruhito. She married a former college classmate Kei Komuro, a commoner, and renounced her royal status in 2021 as required by Japan's Imperial House Law. Days after their marriage, the couple moved to New York where her husband works as a lawyer. Officials said that while the birth involved a former royal, the palace decided to publicly confirm the news after media reports earlier this month on the baby's arrival. They added that they hoped Mako would live in a quiet environment. Mako's parents, Crown Prince Akishino and his wife Kiko, and younger siblings - Princess Kako and Prince Hisahito - are delighted and wished Mako's family happiness, officials said. Japanese tabloid magazine Josei Seven recently published images of Mako and Kei Komuro seen walking with a baby stroller in a neighborhood of New York. Mako and her husband met at Tokyo's International Christian University. They announced in September 2017 their intention to marry the following year, but the wedding was suspended for four years due to a financial dispute involving Kei Komuro's mother. Due to the controversy, Mako also declined a dowry to which she was entitled for leaving the imperial family. Mako's loss of royal status comes from the Imperial House Law, which allows only male succession. The rule leaves only Akishino and his son Hisahito in line to succeed Naruhito. A government panel is discussing a more stable succession system, but conservatives reject female succession and only plan to allow female royals to help perform public duties after marriage.
Japan Forward
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Forward
Former Princess Mako Gives Birth to First Baby
On May 30, the Imperial Household Agency announced that Mako Komuro, 33, has given birth to her first child. The news was shared by Naomasa Yoshida, Grand Steward of the Crown Prince's Household, during a regular press conference. Mako is the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko, and the niece of Emperor Naruhito. She has two younger siblings, Princess Kako and Prince Hisahito. According to Yoshida, they are delighted by the news and wish her family continued happiness. Mako hugs her sister, Princess Kako, as their parents look on, before leaving the family home at the Akasaka Estate on October 26, 2021. (©Sankei by Noriaki Sato) In 2021, Mako married Kei Komuro, a former college classmate and a commoner, thereby relinquishing her royal status as required by Japan's Imperial House Law. The couple later moved to New York, where Kei Komuro now works as a lawyer. The agency has not disclosed the baby's gender or the exact date of birth. Mako and Kei Komuro on September 3, 2017, at the Akasaka East Residence. (©Sankei by Kengo Matsumoto) ( Read the related article in Japanese . ) Author: The Sankei Shimbun
Japan Today
30-05-2025
- General
- Japan Today
Former Princess Mako gives birth to 1st child
Mako Komuro, Crown Prince Fumihito's eldest daughter who married out of the imperial family, gave birth to her first child, the Imperial Household Agency said Friday. The 33-year-old mother and the child -- the first grandchild of the crown prince and the first great-grandchild of former Emperor Akihito -- are both in good health, a source close to the matter said. Naomasa Yoshida, the top aide to the crown prince's family, said in a press conference that the family is "delighted and wishes days of happiness" for the former princess' family. Yoshida did not reveal when Komuro gave birth or the sex of the child, saying, "It is a matter of someone who has left the imperial family, and we hope (the family) will spend their time in a quiet environment." The former princess married her university sweetheart Kei Komuro in October 2021 and has since moved to New York, where her husband works as a lawyer. Japan's 1947 Imperial House Law stipulates that female members of the imperial family lose their royal status upon marrying commoners. © KYODO
