Japan imperial rules tweaked, but still no woman emperor

TOKYO

(FILES) Well-wishers wave national flags as Japan's Emperor Naruhito (top 3rd R) appears with Empress Masako (2nd R), their daughter Princess Aiko (R), Crown Prince Akishino (3rd L), Crown Princess Kiko (2nd L) and their daughter Princess Kako (L) on the balcony of the Imperial Palace to mark the emperor's 65th birthday in Tokyo on Feb. 23, 2025.(AFP)

Japan’s parliament tweaked the imperial succession law on July 17 but maintained the bar on women emperors, despite surveys suggesting wide public support for the idea.

The future of the imperial household, mythically descended from the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, hinges currently on Prince Hisahito, the 19-year-old nephew of Emperor Naruhito, 66.

If Hisahito, a fan of dragonflies currently studying biology and who is not married, has no son, then under the rules as they stand he will have no heir and the bloodline will end.

There have been eight female emperors on the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan’s imperial family, whose divine status was renounced after World War II.

But an 1889 imperial house law stipulated that only men could become emperor, and only through the paternal line. This was carried over in 1947 into the current Imperial Household Law.

This rules out the popular Princess Aiko, 24, daughter of Naruhito, or any other royal woman ever becoming emperor.

The bill, passed by the upper house on July 17, allows the adoption of male distant relatives aged over 15 back into the imperial family, as long as they are single, and for their future sons to become eligible to ascend the throne.

They are members of 11 families that left the imperial register after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

Their common ancestor to the current emperor dates back to the 15th century and is “remote by 36 to 38 degrees of kinship,” the Imperial Household Agency says.