Japan's Crown Prince asks people to leave his wife alone

[Sidewinder]

Japan's Crown Prince Asks for Patience
By MARI YAMAGUCHI (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
February 23, 2008 7:43 AM EST

TOKYO - Japan's crown prince, who turned 48 on Saturday, said his wife needs more time to recover from a stress-induced illness before she can return to official duties.

Naruhito, heir to the world's oldest monarchy, said Crown Princess Masako is making progress but is not quite ready to fully resume her duties and public appearances.

The 44-year-old Masako, a former diplomat who married into the royal family in 1993, has opted out of most imperial functions since the end of 2003 because of what is widely believed to be depression.

After her marriage, she came under immediate pressure to produce a male heir for the monarchy, but she suffered a miscarriage in 1999. She gave birth to her daughter, Aiko, in 2001, but females are prohibited from taking Japan's throne.

She fell into apparent depression two years later, seeming to rule out further attempts to have a boy. She's been portrayed in the media as headstrong and unwilling to make the appropriate sacrifices for the good of the family. Tabloids have detailed her rocky relations with her in-laws.

Masako and Naruhito also faced a string of tabloid criticism lately over her increasing private outings at restaurants and boutiques, while she continued to shy away from official duties.

"Masako, with her conditions, still has ups and downs, (but she) is making efforts to expand her activities, both publicly and privately," the crown prince said at a news conference, a transcript of which was released Saturday.

"I would like to ask for your continued patience and understanding," Naruhito said. "Masako is helping me in many ways and I want to continue giving her firm support," he said.

Naruhito visited his parents' palace later Saturday to mark his birthday.

Great, a woman is suffering from mental health problems, and the media are dogging her because these problems interfere with her "official duties," whatever they are. (What ARE a crown princess' official duties, besides producing a heir? Being a life-sized Barbie doll to the crown prince's Ken?) The Japanese media will bear a heavy cross if Crown Princess Masako ends up attempting suicide thanks to the stress they pile on her.

[AniThyng]

Cutting ribbons, attending official ceremonies, hosting dignitaries etc...I'm not sure who's being more sexist here, you or the media

[Dartzap]

If the Japanese monarchy has similar duties to ours, then its quite possible its a stressful job. I think I heard somewhere that the Queen alone attends 500 events per year, the rest of the family probably to do even more.

[Spin Echo]

Cutting ribbons, attending official ceremonies, hosting dignitaries etc...I'm not sure who's being more sexist here, you or the media

And in this case, producing a male heir, which is really something beyond her control.

[Sidewinder]

I'm not sure who's being more sexist here, you or the media

At least I'm not talking shit about Crown Princess Masako for suffering from mental health problems, trying to act like a normal citizen, or giving Crown Prince Naruhito a daughter instead of a son.

[Gil Hamilton]

Great, a woman is suffering from mental health problems, and the media are dogging her because these problems interfere with her "official duties," whatever they are. (What ARE a crown princess' official duties, besides producing a heir? Being a life-sized Barbie doll to the crown prince's Ken?) The Japanese media will bear a heavy cross if Crown Princess Masako ends up attempting suicide thanks to the stress they pile on her.

Her Official Duties as Crown Princess are producing a male heir for her husband, preferably a spare as well. I'm willing to guess that given what poor luck she's had producing a son and how much the media over there has been on her about it, chances are she's become depressed and stressed enough that she isn't perform the "official duties" needed produce that son. And nowadays, it isn't like the crown prince can start tapping concubines to try and get a male heir that way if the princess isn't able (Asian method) or divorce her and try again with another wife with a fresh uterus (European method).

[AniThyng]

I'm not sure who's being more sexist here, you or the media

At least I'm not talking shit about Crown Princess Masako for suffering from mental health problems, trying to act like a normal citizen, or giving Crown Prince Naruhito a daughter instead of a son.

You were the one who didn't seem to think that she had any other role besides having an heir and being royal bimbo in your comment in the OP.

[Aaron]

[
And in this case, producing a male heir, which is really something beyond her control.

The media should be hounding her husband, considering it's his sperm that decide it.

[xerex]

[
And in this case, producing a male heir, which is really something beyond her control.

The media should be hounding her husband, considering it's his sperm that decide it.

it is genetic isnt it ? according to wikipedia the youngest generation of the imperial family consists of 8 girls and one boy.

and interestingly of the 5 princes of the previous generation 2 had no children .

so eventually it may all come down to a single prince who has a very good chance of only having daughters or no children at all.

[Darth Raptor]

While I'm loathe to sympathize with royalty, Masako has had a rough break. If *Naruhito* can't produce a male heir (sex is determined by the male parent, k thx), the next emperor will be his nephew Hisahito. I really don't see them amending the law on Aiko's behalf. Not just because the Japanese are misogynist fucks, but because it would be a legal nightmare of epic proportions (IIRC, the current emperor has elder sisters, IIRC).

[Academia Nut]

Ironically, the patrilinear monarchies are some of the most genetically self-destructive out there. The low gene pool selections because of the need for the "proper" sort in the marriage ensures long term in-breeding which increases the chance of the occurence of unfavourable allele expression. This is all pretty well known, but when you factor in all the sex-chromosome linked problems out there and the fact that because girls recieve two Xs and thus have some redundancy, the royal lines are genetically selecting to have low numbers of boys. The problem is then compounded as the few boys born are the ones who have to pass on the line, further concentrating the disruptive genes. You could see it with Henry VIII, the guy was clearly carrying a Y-linked genetic disease as the only male heir he had died young and sickly while his daughters were quite healthy.

I would bet good money the crown prince is a carrier of some Y-linked disease making it near impossible for him to actually have a boy.

[Spin Echo]

I would bet good money the crown prince is a carrier of some Y-linked disease making it near impossible for him to actually have a boy.

According to the in-house bioinformaticist, it's not a y-chromosome disease. In his words, "It's a sad fact, but there's hardly any genes there". In terms of genetics, the y-chromosome isn't that imporant because half the population is lacking one. It encodes for only about 23 proteins out of at least 25,000.

[Gil Hamilton]

Alot of patrilinear lines are known for having trouble producing male heirs. Look at the Caesars. Neither Gaius Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar managed to produce any male heirs that didn't die young. Tiberius, who succeeded Augustus, was the son of Augustus' third wife and was his fourth choice after his two sons and his daughter's husband (all of which died).

You know, Augustus daughter developed some serious problems too when the weight of an empire rested on her uterus to produce an heir, though in her case she took it out by having drunken sex with men in public buildings until Caesar exiled her to a desert island far, far away from alcohol and men...

[Thanas]

Alot of patrilinear lines are known for having trouble producing male heirs. Look at the Caesars. Neither Gaius Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar managed to produce any male heirs that didn't die young. Tiberius, who succeeded Augustus, was the son of Augustus' third wife and was his fourth choice after his two sons and his daughter's husband (all of which died).

I don't really Ceasar is an example. Caesarion, anyone?
And the trouble with the other romans was that assassinations were very commonplace in rome, and death of children due to natural causes was nothing strange as well back then.

One could solve that problem by Adoption, however Augustus problem was that almost everyone he adopted died shortly thereafter.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

While I'm loathe to sympathize with royalty, Masako has had a rough break. If *Naruhito* can't produce a male heir (sex is determined by the male parent, k thx), the next emperor will be his nephew Hisahito. I really don't see them amending the law on Aiko's behalf. Not just because the Japanese are misogynist fucks, but because it would be a legal nightmare of epic proportions (IIRC, the current emperor has elder sisters, IIRC).

The law needs to be amended, and may eventually be amended, but it will not be such as to cause legal problems with the current Emperor, because there are a variety of succession modes, and the most common is direct-line male descent, with the second most common--direct line male descent where a daughter in the direct male line only may rule if lacking in male siblings. I.E., Aiko would become Empress because she's the eldest daughter of Naruhito, but if Naruhito did manage to have a son, Aiko would be passed up in the succession in favour of him. This is, for instance, identical to the laws governing British succession.

[Mayabird]

For goodness sakes, if they must be silly about it, there are sex-selection methods out there for picking out the male and female sperm, since the X-chromosome sperm are heavier than the Y-chromosome sperm and the two can be separated. Voila! Male heir, thanks to science.

Or, you know, they could stop being dicks and just allow an empress to reign. It's not like the royals do all that much in the government anyway.

[LadyTevar]

Isn't the law that prohibits Females from inheriting a recent one? As in, within the last 100 years?

[Mr. T]

For goodness sakes, if they must be silly about it, there are sex-selection methods out there for picking out the male and female sperm, since the X-chromosome sperm are heavier than the Y-chromosome sperm and the two can be separated. Voila! Male heir, thanks to science.

Or, you know, they could stop being dicks and just allow an empress to reign. It's not like the royals do all that much in the government anyway.

Interesting. I remember back in highschool biology class when my teacher had said that male births tend to outnumber female births slightly and I wondered back then if the fact that the fewer genes in the Y chromosome led to it being lighter and thus able to move more quickly then X-chromosome sperm. Looks like I was at least right about the being lighter part

[Lusankya]

Isn't the law that prohibits Females from inheriting a recent one? As in, within the last 100 years?

Yes. I believe the Americans put that in the post-war constitution so that Japan would eventually have the American-favoured heir as emperor. I think that historically there have only been a few empresses, (I think because males who were even vaguely eligible took precedence over females), and then there is, of course, the quite obvious mythological precedent.

[Atlan]

Isn't the law that prohibits Females from inheriting a recent one? As in, within the last 100 years?

Yes. I believe the Americans put that in the post-war constitution so that Japan would eventually have the American-favoured heir as emperor. I think that historically there have only been a few empresses, (I think because males who were even vaguely eligible took precedence over females), and then there is, of course, the quite obvious mythological precedent.

Funny that last one. You'd think that, believing the royal house is descended from a Goddess, that the Japanese wouldn't have all that much trouble with female heirs...

[Darth Raptor]

Isn't the law that prohibits Females from inheriting a recent one? As in, within the last 100 years?

Yes. I believe the Americans put that in the post-war constitution so that Japan would eventually have the American-favoured heir as emperor.

No. The law was enacted during the 1889 Meiji Constitution. It's another tradition from the imperial era that we allowed to persist in the 1947 postwar constitution. It's our fault for letting it continue, but it isn't our creation.

[Archaic`]

I remember them talking a few years ago about changing this law, for the same reason as now (this isn't the first time Masako has been hounded about not providing a male heir), but that seems to have dropped off the rader after Koizumi resigned.