Empress Masako (Japan)

[Rebecca]

So...what's teh deal with her? Is she still batshit and being kept locked in the Imperial Palace? I heard that the Japanese are thinking about adopting a male child to have as the heir. Any details?

[Angie]

Apparently Masako will once again begin undertaking royal engagements soon. Such wonderful news! I'm sure she still has her problems, but happily she seems well on the road to recovery.

[Minna]

What wonderful news!

[Sarah]

It's just been announced that the Japanese gov't plans to introduce legislation ensuring that Aiko can inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Here's an article on it:

Article from Monday's Washington Post from the Associated Press about Princess Aiko:
TOKYO - Japan will prepare for a reigning empress for the first time in over 200 years as the government drafts legal changes allowing female succession, a news agency reported Monday.

Japan's royals are facing their most serious succession crisis in centuries. The current law bars women from ascending the Chrysanthemum Throne and no boy has been born to the imperial family since the 1960s.
Kyodo News quoted an unnamed government official as saying "Princess Aiko will go next" after her father, Crown Prince Naruhito, in line for the throne. The report gave no other details, and there was no answer late Monday the prime minister's office.

Princess Aiko, 3, is the only child of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako.

A government panel of experts began debating an amendment to the law last month but is not due to reach a conclusion until later this year. Among the issues the expert panel must resolve are whether the first-born child - be it a boy or a girl - should be first in line to the throne or if the first-born male should take precedence.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is expected to act on the panel's recommendations. Parliament would also need to approve a change in the law.

Recent polls have placed public support for a reigning empress at above 80 percent. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, the head of the 10-member expert panel, has said public opinion would be the most important factor in their considerations.

The current crisis arose in part because the succession law drafted after World War II - part of legal changes redefining the emperor as a ceremonial leader - imposed the male-only rule.

The law has put enormous pressure on Masako to have a baby boy, so much so that she suffered a nervous breakdown in late 2003. The Harvard- and Oxford-educated former diplomat has been forced to spend much of the past year out of the public eye as she recuperates.

In a brief statement on her 41st birthday in December, Masako said: "I feel my health is getting better gradually."

Hideki Hayashida, grand master of the crown prince's family, told the media on the occasion of her birthday that the princess was "heading toward recovery" but tired easily and didn't sleep soundly.

Masako gave up a promising career in Japan's Foreign Ministry to marry Naruhito 12 years ago. Many Japanese had hoped the modern and multilingual princess would help shake up the conservative, tradition-minded imperial family and the Imperial Household Agency, which runs the royals' affairs.

Last year, Naruhito unleashed a storm when he suggested that unidentified palace officials had contributed to Masako's illness by disrespecting her background and career.

The turmoil has stirred calls for allowing an empress to ascend to the throne and for reform of the agency.

A woman last sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne from 1762 to 1771, when Empress Gosakuramachi reigned until abdicating in favor of her nephew.

Seven other women have occupied the throne throughout its 1,500 years of documented history, but they all served as temporary caretakers until males could take over. None of their offspring ever succeeded them.

[foxfair]

So she's 41? Does anyone know if their daughter was conceived with the aid of technology? Because if so I suppose it's looking like there won't be a male heir. I would assume that allowing a female heir would happen *before* allowing a non-blood-related (i.e. adopted) male to inherit - just the general feeling I get from royal fams everywhere that blood IS very important. It'll be cool if their daughter is allowed to inherit but I can't help feeling sorry for Masako - does anyone know anything of Japanese culture? Is simply leaving an option for her? Divorce? It sounds like she's pretty FUBAR.

[may2]

I can't tell you how sorry I feel for her.

I believe the daughter was concieved by IVF. I hope they let her inherit the throne.

[Deleted]

I like her, she seem sweet and not a famewhore.

[nuharoo]

I admire how she went into the royal family and understood she would have to conform. I don't care how much people loved Diana, or said how Diana was in such pressure to bear a son, Masako has been treated far worse, and I can't imagine how much pressure Masako has had to put up with. I would like to think that once her husband the Crown Prince becomes Emperor that he will teach those monsters in the IMperial Household Agency a lesson.

[brinksteria]

The official psychiatric diagnosis is adjustment disorder ... whatever that might be.

In Japan, adjustment disorder is commonly associated with children who grow up abroad but experience shock at the rigidity of Japanese culture when they return home.

It's such a sad story. Here was this bright, ambitious woman. She was fluent in four languages, studied at Oxford and Harvard, had a high-powered career in the foreign service. Supposedly, she turned down the Crown Prince's marriage proposal twice. She accepted the third time with the condition that she be allowed a more modern role, acting as a quasi-ambassador for Japan.

Instead, she sort of became a prisoner in her own castle, being ground down by ten+ years of oppression by something called the Imperial Household Agency. For instance, she once got the smackdown for speaking Russian and English (instead of Japanese) while conversing at a state dinner. Plus she's got the pressure of a whole nation's expectations upon her.

This article sums a lot of it up.

It seems like actual Japanese royalty have no power even in their own palaces. They're like puppets bound to the dictates and protocol of this Imperial Household Agency.

[lunamaria]

I have heard that the Imperial Household Agency was very difficult when the CP and Masako were trying to get engaged/married. Apparently the IHA dug up dirt in her lineage and found out that her ancestors were related to what would be the equivalence of the Untouchables in the Indian caste in Japan, and protested vehemently that the CP shouldn't marry her blah blah blah. Once they found out that the CP was very committed to marrying her, that bit about her ancestry was found to be a mistake and she came from a good background afterall.

The Empress really tried to make Masako's transition into the palace easier, because even though she came from money, she was not one of the aristocracy and was looked down upon by the higher-born ladies. The story goes that the Empress was supposed to dress a certain way for a party, and she was told to dress the other way deliberately so when she arrived, she stood out like a painful sore. So you could say that she understood what Masako was going through and tried to make it better for her, but in the end the antiquated, ultra-conservative Imperial Household Agency wins.

It is mighty interesting that the power-players of a country that is believed to have come from a goddess would deny a woman to be on its throne.