Japan is running out of royals. So why won’t it let women become emperor?

Japan's Emperor Naruhito (third from left) waves to well-wishers alongside key members of the royal family at the Imperial Palace on February 23 in Tokyo, Japan. The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

TOKYO — Japan may have its first ever female prime minister, but her government’s attempts to avoid a royal succession crisis are making the chances of a woman taking the imperial throne ever slimmer.

With just three eligible heirs to the Chrysanthemum throne – and two of them 60 or over – the imperial family is facing a succession crisis.

Japan’s monarchy has for centuries maintained male-only succession, which is on-brand for a deeply patriarchal society where men dominate other spheres of life such as business and politics.

Now, that rule has come to threaten the very survival of the world’s oldest monarchy which, in recent decades, has spawned more daughters than sons.

To solve the dearth of heirs, government ministers have proposed reinstating former branches of the royal family, thereby expanding the pool of male successors. The changes are awaiting parliamentary approval.

But it has left scholars, opposition politicians and some citizens wondering: why not just let women take the throne?

‘No rational basis’

“It is difficult to find any rational basis for refusing to allow a woman to become emperor,” said Professor Makoto Okawa, who studies imperial lineage at Chuo University in Tokyo.

Japan previously had eight empresses, mostly when the male heirs were too young to rule, until the Imperial House Law was enacted in 1889 during the Meiji era, officially banning female emperors.

Despite the law, the country’s overarching constitution does not bar women from taking the throne, Okawa said, nor can it be regarded as a “Japanese tradition” to exclude them.

“The idea of excluding women in advance as persons incapable of becoming emperor should be understood plainly as misogyny,” said Okawa.

Various polls have shown most people are open-minded about female emperors.

Another resident, Kana Sakakura, noted that countries in Europe, such as the U.K., have long histories of female monarchs.

“I suppose when you really compare it to other countries, it does feel like Japan still has an atmosphere where women taking on leadership roles in society is avoided,” she said.

But the cause of female succession has gained little traction. And Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her ruling Liberal Democratic Party are among the sternest voices of opposition to such a change.

During a parliamentary discussion earlier this year, Takaichi said it was still “appropriate to limit eligibility to male descendants of the imperial lineage.”

Her government’s proposed amendments, expected to pass into law this month, do not contain a single scenario where a princess can ascend to the throne. Neither can their children, if they marry a commoner – an almost certain occurrence, given the royal family’s shrinkage.

Though its role is largely ceremonial, the imperial family – believed in Japanese myth to be descendants of the Sun Goddess – is a powerful symbol of unity in the country of 123 million.

The family’s centrality to the nation is such that US army general Douglas MacArthur, overseeing Japan’s development immediately after World War II, described the emperor in a telegram as “a symbol which unites all Japanese,” according to the US State Department’s Office of the Historian. “Destroy him and the nation will disintegrate.”

Imperial downsizing

In pre-war Japan, identifying a successor was less of a conundrum.

Back then, the imperial family was bigger and incorporated other collateral branches, known as Oke, which offered a pool of candidates if the main bloodline failed to produce an heir.

But that all changed in 1947. As Japan grappled with a war-ravaged economy, the Imperial House Law was amended to downsize the imperial family and trim royal spending.

That effectively restricted membership of the imperial family to immediate relatives of then Emperor Hirohito, pruning 11 collateral branches, and setting the scene for the current shortage.

The original 67-member royal household shrank to 16, a contraction exacerbated by the requirement that female members must leave the imperial family after marrying a commoner.

The latest government proposal seeks to allow the imperial family to “adopt” members of these former collateral branches who are 15 years old or above, unmarried and childless. Their children would be eligible to the throne.

Currently, Emperor Naruhito, 66, has a daughter, the widely popular Princess Aiko, who is legally barred by gender from inheriting the throne. At age 24, she doesn’t have any children, and even if she did have a son, he wouldn’t be eligible to take the throne.

Two of the emperor’s eligible successors are Hitachi, Naruhito’s 90-year-old uncle, and his younger brother Akishino, 60.

The third eligible – and most likely – successor is Akishino’s 19-year-old son Hisahito, the first male royal to reach adulthood in 40 years.

Over the years, the imperial family has shrunk and aged so much that performing royal duties has become a struggle. The new bill will also enable princesses to stay in the imperial family and share the workload after they marry a commoner, although their sons remain ineligible for the throne.

Okawa, from Chuo University, said these are only short-term fixes as they depend heavily on limited male heirs and their sons.

“As long as women remain excluded as subjects of imperial succession, it will be difficult to secure the fundamental stability of the imperial succession,” he said.

Nod to tradition

But for some, the question of female succession strikes at the heart of a tradition that, they say, has provided the country the stability on which it thrives.

“People who favor that outcome might not see it as an issue, but for someone like me who believes we should sustain the traditional patrilineal line, this is seen as a distinct risk,” Tsuneyasu Takeda, a descendant of a former collateral imperial branch, told CNN.

He will not be eligible for “adoption” under the proposed bill because he’s already married. His son could be eligible when he reaches 15 years old, though Takeda wants him to take over his company.

His father was born just months after the 1947 amendments came into force, and so narrowly missed out on a hereditary title. He’s been vocal about protecting male-only lineage and restoring former royal branches by writing books, running a social media channel and giving university lectures.

Takeda said tradition should not be overturned by “a popularity contest.”

“Even if a decision is reached by a slim majority in a democratic vote, if a segment of the population refuses to recognize the emperor, the monarch will not be respected,” he said.

“This would fundamentally shake the foundations of Japan.”

But resident Akio Kubota disagreed, pointing out that there had been female emperors in the past.

“In today’s world, we have gender equality and things like that,” he said.

“I guess it just feels a bit strange that only the role of the emperor would be strictly passed down through men.”

By Hanako Montgomery, Junko Ogura, Chris Lau, CNN