@Little Nemo. Good thoughts. I was thinking the US decided to immediately hobble the monarchy politically, and leave it to the accidents of fate for when and how the monarchy finally collapses to dust. But meanwhile they adjusted the rules to have that happen sooner rather than later. But probably far enough in the future that the immediate post-war passions will have long since cooled so the end of the monarchy would not be seen as a US action.
As to loss of heir, my question was essentially what happens if they take option 1: do nothing, and then Hisahito dies without issue after the others are gone. IOW Oops, we forgot to have a plan. You’ve outlined good choices for ways to keep the dynasty going.
I wonder if anyone else could offer a thought on the politics. Would they be motivated to bother or not?
As noted, males can marry commoners. However, as far as the question of a prince telling the system to fuck off, it would take quite an extraordinary circumstance, I’m sure.
The imperial family is raised from childhood to conform to the system. It’s difficult to really reject that. Note that the Japanese monarcy is poor. They have no independent wealth and must rely on their allowances.
The closest I’ve seen to this was in 2004 when the Crown Prince spoke out concerning the treatment his wife was being subjected to.
My bolding.
The English translation isn’t particularly strong, and is much less shocking then the Japanese.
In turn, the younger brother used his limited press time to criticize the crown prince.
They had concubines, although there may have been a time when polygamy was allowed.
I agree that female succession or adoption would be more much more likely to be adapted first.
It could be. I know that it would require a change in that law for adaption to be permitted. However, if there comes a time when there are no longer any (male) heirs, something will likely be changed.
At the time, the US was much more concerned that the Japanese didn’t become ultra nationalists again. They had Hirohito’s compliance, and wanted to ensure that there wouldn’t be any future wide cards.
My sense is that they would like to continue it, although this could obviously change at some point in the future.
Like most other countries, we can safely assume that the younger people would care less than the older folks. However, the government is made up of nothing but older people, and they would care enough to do something.
Back before Hisahito was born in 2006, a clear majority (70% plus) of Japanese supported allowing females to ascend to the throne. There was a formal study group set up which recommended it, and had Hisahito not been born, that would likely have occurred.
The die-hard conservatives will never accept it, and they do have an outsized influence, especially on the ruling party, the conservative LDP. I think there would be a zero percent chance of letting the throne die off in the next couple of years, as you posted here. After another 60 years when Emperor Hisahito is 70? Who knows?
Not being around Japanese news anymore, I don’t have a good sense of where it’s going.
I don’t actually remember that with 100% confidence. I know that the US was concerned about outside influence on the throne and there were questions concerning some of Hirohito’s relatives. There were a number of members of the aristocracy which were politicians and military leaders.
I have read accounts which place the responsibility directly on GHQ. I’ve googled but haven’t seen anything which is satisfactory.
(I had to give up most of my collection of history books as I moved over the years from one small Japanese apartment to another. By the time I had a house (although limited in size by a family) I had already given up too many of my books.)
Good point. We can no longer laugh at the world.
According to Japanese law, he would be a commoner. Japanese law is based on the Japanese imperial family as royalty and doesn’t recognize royalty from other countries.
The translated term “imperial” is used because of the the timing of the Meiji restoration in the 19th century. The Japanese wanted to place their monarchy on the same level as Germany and France, among others. There is no distinction in Japanese between a king and an emperor.
How did the Japanese emperor compare to the Chinese emperor? My understanding is they used different words. Did the Japanese emperor recognize the Chinese emperor as higher rank (or equal, or lesser)?
According to the strictest interpretations of British law Prince Harry is technically a commoner in the UK too since he’s neither the Sovereign, a peer, or the wife/widow the Sovereign or of a peer.
Japanese use the genderless term tennoo heaven’s emperor for their emperor or empress. They use the genderless term koutei emperor for everyone else. The ranks are equal.
Historically the Japanese borrowed many things such as ranks from the Chinese.
Chinese rulers claimed jurisdiction over the entire planet. According to the imperial ideology, there was one huang-ti (usually translated into English as “emperor”) on the planet, and he lived in Beijing. All other rulers were referred to by the lesser title wang (usually translated into English as “king”).
Japanese rulers held that there was one tenno on the planet, and he lived in Tokyo. Other rulers were referred to by something else. In the presence of Chinese emissaries, they did not claim that a tenno was equal to a huang-ti. They just claimed that tenno was a uniquely Japanese title, that should not be used by a non-Japanese.
If the Chinese translated tenno as wang, the Japanese didn’t particularly care. As long as the Japanese ruler didn’t call himself huang-ti, and the Chinese ruler didn’t call himself tenno, everybody was happy.
First, female members of the Imperial family can remain in the family if they marry other members. The wording of the law seems to imply that this is the expected thing for them to do (Article 12).
Second, members of the family can opt to leave the family of their own free will from age 15, making it stranger that abdication required special one-off legislation from the Diet (Article 11).
Third, members of the Imperial Family are specifically forbidden by law to adopt (Article 9). Not really relevant to the current matter, I just thought it was interesting that any adoption was expressly forbidden, rather than just declaring adopted members ineligible for succession.
They also drastically reduced the number of members of the imperial family at the same time they make the requirements concerning females having to leave so they couldn’t have expected them to marry other members.
I haven’t read anything about the specifics of why the chose to forbid abdication.
I’m sure that GHQ wanted to ensure that there was no chance of outsiders gaining control of the throne, so hence the prohibition against adopting.
The law was adapted shortly after the bloodiest war ever and there were many Allies who were extremely opposed to the idea of the emperor continuing on the throne.