Imperial Succession

I have written about the Imperial family and succession on this blog before, but the relevant law was revised on July 17^th, and there was a front-page article about it in the July 27^th issue of Jinja Shinpō, so I am going to write about it again.

The Tennō is extremely important to mainstream Shinto, and to Japanese conservatives in general. The immediate reason for this is that the Meiji government, which had just overthrown the Tokugawa government, used jinja and priests as part of a propaganda effort to make the Tennō central to the self-conception of the Japanese state and people. This is why the Tennō was controversial for decades after the war, although untiring effort by the Imperial family to be uncontroversial and positive has greatly reduced that now.

However, the deeper reason is that the Tennō has been central to many self-conceptions of the Japanese state and people for as long as either have existed. The dynasty has reigned for at least 1400 years, and quite possibly 1600, which I believe makes it the oldest surviving royal house by a few centuries at a minimum. Conservatives say that it goes back to 660 BC, but it doesn’t. My understanding of the evidence is that the oldest it could plausibly be is 1800 years, but that, on balance, the evidence from that period suggests that the dynasty did not yet exist. There is nothing invented about this tradition, except in the sense that all traditions are invented at some point.

The tradition that the imperial status is inherited in the male line is about the same age. It is clear that this was the rule by 800 AD, and there are no known exceptions to the rule after 600 AD — but it is not clear that it was actually the rule at that point, because there are some Tennō who were the children of a female Tennō. (Their fathers were in the male line, so they were also still in the male line, but it is not clear that this was felt to be essential to their status.) Female Tennō were rare, after the eighth century AD, but they have normally been possible, as long as their father was in the male line.

Because the children of Imperial princesses were not in the line of succession unless their fathers were princes or Tennō, it was customary for princesses to effectively leave the Imperial family when they married; this was formalised in the Meiji period, and retained post-war.

Although the Tennō had to be in the male line of the dynasty, he most definitely did not have to be the son of the previous Tennō. There was a period of a century or so in which the Tennō alternated between two lines of descent, and so at the end of that period the Tennō was succeeded by a distant cousin, and appointed a distant cousin of his own as his heir.

Historically, the Tennō has almost always been symbolic, with little or no real power. That is still true today, but under the post-war constitution the Tennō does need to approve laws before they go into effect, and to appoint cabinets. Thus, we need a Tennō. We also need at least one “back-up Tennō”, who can do those jobs if the Tennō is ill, or on a state visit to watch the World Cup with the King of the Netherlands. Legally, this needs to be an adult member of the Imperial family, and it has typically been the crown prince. The law does allow for the empress, or other female members of the Imperial family, to do this, but that has never happened, as far as I know.

This is why there is a crisis. Right now, there is one male member of the Imperial family under the age of sixty. There are about half-a-dozen female members under that age, although the man, Prince Hisahito, is the youngest, at nineteen. There is, therefore, a distinct risk that, in twenty years’ time, there will be exactly two adult members of the Imperial family: the Tennō, and his wife. That is not legally viable.

The law has therefore been changed in two ways. First, princesses no longer have to leave the Imperial family if they get married, although all those who are alive now have the option to do so. This change was a bit controversial, because conservatives strongly believe that the spouses and children of princesses should not become members of the Imperial family, but the law avoids making a decision on that question.

The second change is to allow members of the Imperial family other than men in the direct line of succession to adopt, and have the adoptees become members of the Imperial family. The potential adoptees are unmarried, childless men in the male line of families that were stripped of their Imperial status shortly after the war, when the fear was that the Imperial family would get too big — the Tennō at the time had two sons and three brothers, and all his brothers were married. The adoptee will not be eligible to become Tennō, but he will be eligible to stand in for the Tennō if he cannot perform his duties. It is not clear whether his male-line descendants will be eligible to become Tennō, and that may well depend on how many sons Hisahito has. The restriction to unmarried, childless men is almost certainly intended to make it politically easier to put his children into the line of succession if necessary, as they would have been born as members of the Imperial family. (It also avoids the need to decide what happens to existing spouses and children.)

This has also been a bit controversial, partly, I believe, because of the activities of some of the candidates (they were, and still are, private individuals), but also because the most recent male-line ancestor that they share with the current Tennō died in the fourteenth century AD. A lot of people are really not convinced that this is in the spirit of the tradition, or that this is a better solution than allowing female-line succession.

The Shinto establishment is, broadly, content with the current revisions. They would strongly oppose the spouses and children of princesses joining the Imperial family, but that may not happen. They would also, I think, prefer Prince Hisahito’s son to become Tennō, but if no such person is born, they want someone in “the male line”. That is, after all, the tradition.