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Questions remain about who will succeed Emperor Naruhito, but even the most recent rule change prevents Princess Aiko, the emperor’s only child, from taking the throne
NEED TO KNOW
- Japanese parliament recently passed a bill to allow distant male relatives to be added to the line of succession
- However, female members of the royal family are still not eligible to rule
- This means that Princess Aiko, the only child of Emperor Naruhito, is still ineligible to succeed her father on the throne
Japanese parliament recently made a major change to the country’s rules of succession, but one major restriction remains in place.
On July 17, the upper house passed a bill allowing distant male relatives over 15 to be adopted into the imperial line of succession. The rule change — the first amendment to the main text of the Imperial House Law since 1949 — comes amid concern about dwindling male heirs.
However, no changes have been made to the law that prevents women from inheriting the throne, meaning that Emperor Naruhito’s only child, Princess Aiko, is still ineligible to succeed her father on the throne. Currently, the emperor’s 60-year-old brother, Fumihito, also known as Crown Prince Ashikino, is in line to inherit, followed by his 19-year-old son, Prince Hisahito.
The new bill, which already cleared the lower house and will now move through the final legal procedures, will allow male descendants of 11 former imperial branches to rejoin the royal family, increasing the number of family members available to attend to royal duties and public appearances. The branches of the royal family were initially culled down following Japan’s defeat in World War II.
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Another major change made by the parliamentary ruling is that female members of the imperial family will also be able to retain their royal status if they marry commoners.
In 2021, Princess Mako, the niece of the emperor and eldest child of Crown Prince Ashikino and Crown Princess Kiko, renounced her royal titles and left the imperial family in order to marry her college sweetheart, Kei Komuro. They later moved to the United States, where they work as lawyers, and welcomed their first child in May 2025.
While appearing at a press event in the hours after she and Komuro, now both 34, submitted their marriage registration, Mako said, “I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused, and I am grateful for those ... who have continued to support me,” per the BBC. “For me, Kei is irreplaceable — marriage was a necessary choice for us.”
Per the BBC, recent polls indicate that a majority of Japanese citizens would be in favor of a female empress. The country’s continued ban on female rulers puts it in contrast with many of the remaining European monarchies, which have changed their rules in recent years.
In 2011, Great Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth made the Perth Agreement, which replaced male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture, which does not take sex into account in the line of succession. This meant that when Prince Louis was born in April 2018, Princess Charlotte did not move below him, making her the first British princess in history to rank above her brother.
There are multiple European nations with a female next in line to the throne, including Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria, Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth, Spain’s Princess Leonor and the Netherlands’ Princess Catharina-Amalia.
Read the original article on People
