Comment

New From Courtney Barnett: "If I Don't Hear From You Tonight"

91
Anymouse 🌹🏡😷11/14/2021 5:42:37 am PST

re: #90 Barefoot Grin

It’s really becoming a crisis of sorts. Imperial men can now marry commoners. Mako’s grandmother was the first and caused a big sensation in the 1950s. The current empress also came from a prominent businessman’s family. But, if memory serves, there’s only one male heir right now. And the women who have married into the family have suffered traumatic stress over the pressures society and media places on the family, not to mention the Imperial Household Agency. So, good luck getting anyone to marry the heir to the throne.

You can blame that on the USA.

Imperial Household Law (Wikipedia)

The law was adopted in 1947, replacing the previous law of 1889. The USA forced the law on Japan to bring the Imperial succession in line with the surrender treaty of WW2. The law was drafted by Douglas MacArthur.

The law had the effect of dramatically restricting membership in the Imperial Family to the Emperor Hirohito’s immediate family, his widowed mother, and the families of his three brothers. It abolished the collateral lines of the Imperial Family, the shinnōke and the ōke, which had traditionally been a pool of potential successors to the throne if the main imperial family failed to produce an heir. The fifty-one members of the eleven cadet branches renounced their Imperial status; and they were formally removed from the Imperial household register and became ordinary citizens on October 14, 1947.