September 06, 2006

It's a boy.... Princess Kiko of the Japanese Royal household gave birth by Caesarean section this morning. It is likely that he will be named as the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. But the debate continues...

There has been overwhelming public support to name Princess Aiko as the official heir. But it seems the government have been able to breathe a sigh of relief and shelf that controversial plan. The Japanese Royal family are pretty much just a tradition and don't play a huge role (just like most Royal families), but this situation contrasts with some of the comments regarding promoting the rights of women made by the candidates currently campaigning in the race for Prime Minister, which looks like will take place at the end of this month, when the next election will be held. (Sorry still looking for links in English on those).

posted by gomichild 18 years ago
  • List of Japanese Emperors and Empresses As you can see there have been ruling Empresses - the tricky thing is that the throne is passed down through the male line. The proposed change was to allow a sucession regardless of that.
  • Although it is officially renounced, the Chrysanthemum Throne purports to have a straight line of descent from a goddess, Amaterasu, through her grandson, Emperor Jimmu. It's a funny old world, that they're proud of being descended from a goddess, but horrified of being ruled by an Empress. /Wikifilter
  • Only the wacko right wing traditionalists are horrified technically.... Actually glad not to have to go into TOkyo today - the black vans will be driving around everywhere blasting out their propoganda....
  • I was hoping that it would be a girl. With my alignment increasingly leaning toward Chaotic Good, I like seeing societies and governments wrestle with issues such as these.
  • *bows low ichy cootchy coo you little cutie!
  • Women could sit on the throne - and it has passed through women before. There is nothing traditional about banning women from the throne - it's only from the nineteenth century. (People are so short sighted! It's not traditional unless it dates to at least 1600. Of course, my Anglo-Saxonist housemate would say nothing is traditional that's post 1000ad). You have to blame the Meiji regime for this crazyness -- or, actually, blame the Germans. Basically, in the Meiji restoration, the new Japanese government lifted constitutional elements from European constitutions, and included the Salic-law bit about how women couldn't sit on various German thrones (since there was no one German throne at the time). That's the bit that lost Hanover for Britain - as a woman, Victoria could inherit Britain and the Empire, but not Hanover. If she had been a boy, maybe Germany would never have been united. So then when the Americans were writing the new Japanese constitution after the war, they just mindlessly copied that bit of the Meiji constitution. So the point is, it's not even Japanese, it's Salic, and there is no point in keeping it. I'm obviously happy that they've had a healthy baby, but I am disapointed that the issue won't be dealt with. And I'm really annoyed at all those so-called "conservatives" or "traditionalists" who don't even know their own history. I know this, and I'm getting this second-hand from someone who just did a couple of courses. Dreadnought (said source) says: "They should just bring out a pragmatic sanction".
  • I thought it was a pragmatic c-section. / jb always knows so much.
  • Congrats, luv!
  • Actually, everything in the above comment was totally cribbed from Dreadnought (as many of my comments are, unless they are about early modern social history). I did a bit of Chinese history in undergrad, but he did two or three courses of Japanese history, and is also a monarchy buff.
  • Ah. *very* interesting to see we're all so similar. An interesting piece of history, no doubt. Thank you for the post, o gomi, my friend. I smile knowing we are so similar.