Japan Locks In Male-Only Emperor Rule

Japanese Emperor Akihito (L), Empress Michiko (2nd L), Crown Prince Naruhito (3rd L, and his wife, Princess Masako (R), Prince Akishino (4th L) and his wife, Princess Kiko (3rd R), and Princess Mako (2nd R) walk down a hill to greet guests during the spring garden party at the Akasaka Palace imperial garden in Tokyo on April 27, 2016. Shizuo Kambayashi/AFP/Getty ImagesJapanese lawmakers enacted a historic revision to the 19th-century Imperial House Law on July 17, expanding who can be members of the imperial family while insisting only paternal-lineage men can become emperor.The bill cleared the House of Councillors after passing the House of Representatives the week before, completing its journey through the Diet, Japan’s parliament. It now moves through final legal procedures before taking effect.Under the new law, female members of the imperial family will be able to retain their status after marrying a commoner, rather than automatically losing it as the current law requires.Unmarried male descendants of distant imperial relatives, provided they come from the paternal line and are 15 or older, can be adopted into the existing imperial household. That second measure concerns those stripped of imperial status in 1947.Yoshimi Ogata, an Imperial Household Agency official, told a House of Representatives committee on July 10 that those men are “36 to 38 degrees of kinship” from the emperor, according to a report by Japan’s public broadcaster NHK.Japan has had eight reigning empresses in its history. The most recent, Empress Go-Sakuramachi, ruled from 1762 to 1770.The male-only succession rule dates to 1889, when Japan’s first Imperial House Law enshrined it as part of a broader period of patriarchal reform. The 1947 law that governs the monarchy today largely carried that principle forward.Despite the overhaul, the law’s foundation is untouched. Article 1 of the Imperial House Law still restricts the throne to “a male offspring in the male line belonging to the Imperial Lineage.”That means 24-year-old Princess Aiko, the only child of Emperor Naruhito, remains ineligible to succeed her father.Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Feb. 25 that ensuring a stable succession system cannot be postponed, and called on the Diet to move quickly toward a resolution.Two days later, at a House of Representatives Budget Committee session on Feb. 27, Takaichi acknowledged that Japan has had female emperors before and said dismissing that history would be disrespectful.Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), speaks during a press conference at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo on Feb. 9, 2026. Franck Robichon/AFP via Getty ImagesShe also said that no emperor has ever inherited the throne through the female line, only through the male line.Citing a 2021 government expert panel, she said the law stipulates that succession to the throne is limited to males, adding that both she and the government respect that conclusion.Japanese Emperor Naruhito (C), Empress Masako (L), and their daughter Princess Aiko (R) pose for a photograph during a family portrait session ahead of the New Year, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Dec. 21, 2021. Imperial Household Agency of Japan via APConstitutional Democratic Party (CDP) lawmaker Shunichi Mizuoka said the bill’s purpose was to increase the number of imperial family members, yet an adopted man would not gain succession rights, while his future son would.Applying the current succession rules only to the adopted man’s child, Mizuoka said, was “self-serving logic” and amounted to little more than expediency.Takaichi said that a child born to an adopted member of the imperial family would become a member of the imperial family by birth.As a result, she said, Articles 1 and 2 of the Imperial House Law would apply directly to that child. If the child were male, he would have succession rights under the existing law, rather than through a new legal interpretation.The Associated Press contributed to this report.