The problem in brief: Japanese law says that succession to the Imperial throne can only go to males, but none of the princes have had any male children and the youngest wife is in her mid-40’s. There are several daughters, however, including Crown Prince Naruhito’s own 4-year-old daughter Aiko.
The solution: Change the law allowing female succession. Public support is around 80%, and none of the government proposals have faced any real opposition from lawmakers. Simple, no?
No. Prince Tomohito is opposed to this proposed change on the grounds that it will result in the dilution of the imperial bloodlines when they marry commoner husbands. How this dilution is different from when an imperial male marries a commoner wife (as Emperor Akihito, Crown Prince Naruhito, and in fact Prince Tomohito himself have all done) has yet to be explained, it just is. Tomohito’s solution is for Naruhito (or possibly one of the other princes, including himself) to start getting busy with pinch hitters until one of them pops out a boy.
So, any Doper ladies interested in helping out for a good cause? Applicants for the position of Imperial Concubine should have no recorded sexual history, a fascination with 40y.o - 60y.o. Japanese men, strong interest in having children (raising them is optional), and an affinity for having every detail of your life micromanaged by an army of petty bureaucrats. Turn-offs should include: having any contact with the outside world, expressing an opinion on anything, and daughters.
I presume they would also have to be Japanese? Unlike European royal families, the Japanese royals have never, AFAIK, married or bred with foreigners in all their country’s history.
I recall reading somewhere that Prince Tomohito’s ideas are slightly old fashioned. This article seems to confirm it.
Surely one could use the example of Denmark’s royalty to Prince Tomohito - to illustrate that female monarchs do not detract from a successfully royal lineage!
Actually, there is a precedent, though not necessarily of bringing foreign blood into Japan.
Princess Nashimoto Masako, who married Crown Prince Eun of Korea in 1920 to become Crown Princess Bang-ja. She doesn’t seem to be the only Japanese royal to marry a Korean, but I don’t know of any Koreans that became part of the Japanese Imperial household.
Given Crown Princess Mariko’s career and feminist leanings, have the tinfoil-hat crowd in Japan begun to accuse her of having deliberately induced miscarriages to ensure a female heir, thus forcing the legal change, yet?
And is Prince Tomohito one of those tinfoil-hatters?
I haven’t heard that one yet. Mostly, the general impression is that Masako’s miscarriage was due at least in part from all the stress the royal family was putting her under. She’s actually been very quiet (or has been kept very quiet) about her political views. So far, Tomohito’s the only one in the family I know of who’s made any public statement on either side of the issue.
To be honest, I’d never heard of him before his statement in November that ninevah quoted. Public and parliamentary support are behind changing the rules and those in the direct imperial line aren’t opposing it, so I doubt Tomohito’s going to accomplish anything other than embarrassing the people around him (and as it is, he’s not a regular part of any of official functions and doesn’t seem to have any official duties, so it’s not like he has any real leverage over the others).
I do kind of wonder, though, what the Crown Prince is thinking about the idea.
Naruhito: “Hmm… concubines, eh? Wonder if those babes in the press corp are eligible? Sure wouldn’t mind tapping…”
Masako: …glare…
Naruhito: "uh, no, absolutely opposed to the idea, it’s time for us to be moving forward and embracing new women… I mean ways, ways of boinking. Thinking! Ways of thinking… boobies.
Japanese historians traditionally dated their monarchy back to 660 B.C. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Emperors_of_Japan) Modern historians actually believed the monarchy emerged some time during the Kofun period (250-538 A.D.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofun_era) Either way, it is undisputed that the monarchy has remained in the same family since the beginning, and that is a world record for dynastic longevity.
See, they hit upon the tactic that the Europeans never caught on to – by letting the males marry commoner females, they constantly brought in fresh genetic material, so the royal line never became inbred and feeble.
I think they hit upon the tactic of just being figureheads while everyone else did the actual running of things several centuries before the Europeans did, so it never mattered how inbred and feeble they were.
The tsars of Russia, up until the 19th century, usually married women of noble but not royal rank. Peter the Great’s second wife’s father was probably a Lithuanian peasant (there’s not much documentation, so we don’t know for sure).
No, not commoners. They married within the kuge, the Court nobility at Kyoto. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuge After the Meiji Restoration, the kuge was merged with the daimyo feudal nobility to form a new peerage, the kazoku.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazoku That was abolished (but the monarchy retained) after WWII. Of course, everybody still knows who those families are, and it was expected Crown Prince Naruhito would choose a bride from one of them. To the consternation of traditionalists, he didn’t. Naruhito’s wife, the Empress Michiko, is the first imperial consort of common birth. (Her father was a wealthy industrialist.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiko_of_Japan
To give Naruhito his due, there is a long tradition of the royals breeding with (aristocratic) concubines. Hirohito was the first emperor in several centuries whose biological mother was also his predecessor’s official wife. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito#Accession
And Tomohito, the one who has floated the idea of reviving official concubinage (and who likewise is married to a commoner), is heir to a princely house which appears to be collateral to the main imperial line. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_tomohito_of_mikasa
It’s almost as bad as trying to keep track of all those Louises . . .
[monty python]
LOUIS X???: Look, sheddy, when yer king of France, ye’ve got more important things to do than remember yer bloody number!
The Crown Prince doesn’t need any excuse to get some on the side, so I doubt that’s his motivation; a couple nights out with Sublight would get him into the right places. This is Japan, after all – it’s not like there isn’t ample opportunity for men with such proclivities to fulfil them.
Given the broad public support, it does seem a bit anachronistic to be still pushing for the status quo. Even the loony Black Van types haven’t raised a fuss (that I’ve heard of).
This is Japan, after all – it’s not like there isn’t ample opportunity for men with such proclivities to fulfil them.