Japan: "Politicians happy to put off royal debate"

(The Japan Times 7 September 2006)

Dag T. Hoelseth

freddy...

The whole "debate" was a joke; there are plenty of male heirs of
concubines. The rumors of this family's extinction have been greatly
exaggerated.

mjcar...

Perhaps you've not grasped the nature of the situation: under the
present Constitution all those junior members of the family,

channelxster...

rom

genealogically far removed from the present Emperor, were removed from
the Imperial Family sixty years ago, and as such are not eligible to
succeed. One of the other scenarios being discussed was indeed the

channelxster...

the

restoration of (some of) these junior lines in order to perpetuate the
lineage on the Throne.

freddy...

I understand this quite well, but the Diet could change that provision
if it needed to. Of ourse, the two younger princes could have taken on
concubines and produced any number of male heirs but apparently the
women's lib sentiment was to strong-even in Japan.

CJ Buyers...

That raises an interesting point.

Here, in the West, everyone is a subject of the sovereign. Members of
their family included. Do you mean that in Japan members of the
Imperial Family are not subjects of the Emperor?

channelxster...

Of course, the members of IF are also a subject. But in East Asia,
especially In Japan, we traditionally distinguished: the Emperor;
members of IF; (other) subjects. In direct translation of Japanese,
the other subjects than members of IF are just called 'subjects'. The
Imperial Family is special. Here the members of IF are defined as
those who have the status of members of IF and so recognised by the
Emperor. So, once granted status of a subject, s/he is no longer a
member of IF, so succession right is lost.
Loking at the medieval court rank system, it follows this concept. The
members of IF have different hierarchy from subjects's one.
Both the traditional and present succession laws also follow this.

I hope it helps you.

Cheers,
KO

Of course, you may understand this aspect of it perfectly well (in
which case, apologies for teaching you to suck eggs), but it might be
useful to prevent others from being misled.

Regards, Michael