Japan Passes Imperial Succession Reform That Still Bars Women From the Throne

(WS News) – Japan’s parliament has passed revisions to the law governing succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne, a move the government says is meant to secure the shrinking imperial family’s numbers, but one that critics say was deliberately designed to keep women permanently excluded from becoming emperor.

The upper house approved the changes days after the lower house did the same. The revisions allow princesses to remain part of the imperial family after marriage rather than losing their status, as current law requires, but stop short of allowing them, or their children, to inherit the throne. Former diplomat Seiichiro Noboru, who has ties to the imperial family, said the legislation’s real objective was to prevent the future emergence of a female emperor.

The debate centers heavily on Princess Aiko, the 24-year-old daughter of Emperor Naruhito, who holds a degree in Japanese literature and works full time for the Japanese Red Cross Society. Public opinion polls show between 60 and 90 percent of Japanese support allowing a female emperor, driven in large part by Aiko’s popularity. The imperial family’s line of succession is currently down to one young heir, 19-year-old Prince Hisahito, nephew of the 66-year-old emperor.

Opposition to reform is led, notably, by Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, who told her party’s convention in April that the unbroken male imperial lineage across 126 generations is the foundation of the emperor’s authority and legitimacy. Historians note that Japan has in fact had eight female emperors over nearly twelve centuries, though all were descended through the male line, a distinction the new law does not revive.