7 in 10 Japanese happy with an empress, so why are women still blocked from the Chrysanthemum Throne?

A new public opinion poll shows more than 70 per cent of Japanese people are open to legal changes that would permit a female member of the imperial family to sit on the nation's Chrysanthemum Throne.

Conducted by the Mainichi newspaper and the Social Survey Research Centre of Saitama University, the poll comes weeks after an advisory panel set up by the government to consider the future of the world's longest-lived monarchy came up with two suggestions to solve the problem of a dire shortage of male heirs and, potentially, to head off the extinction of Japan's imperial family.

Significantly, neither of the panel's proposals was for legal changes that would permit a woman to become empress.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Yet even as Japanese people are amenable to an empress, there is little likelihood of that coming to pass as long as the nation's political world remains deeply conservative and dominated by older generations of men, analysts say.

In fact, traditionalists' opposition to an empress may actually be encouraging more radical suggestions in some parts of society that the monarchy should be abolished entirely, they add.

The need to reconsider the situation is more pressing than in the past, however, as there are now only two heirs to the throne after Emperor Naruhito. One is his younger brother, Prince Akishino, and his son, the 15-year-old Prince Hisahito. The emperor has a daughter, 20-year-old Princess Aiko.

So while there is one more generation that is able to trace its lineage back to the Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first leader of Japan who is believed to be descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu and who took the throne in 660BC, that comes to an abrupt halt if Prince Hisahito has no male heir.

"I am not at all surprised at the results of the survey, but it will not change anything," said Chisato Kitanaka, an associate professor of sociology at Hiroshima University.

"Many people may want an empress, but they have far more important things to worry about in their day-to-day lives, such as jobs, income and getting their children through school," she said. "For most Japanese, the monarchy is not important."

And that means that when a national election comes around, most people tend to vote for a party that has been in power virtually uninterrupted for the last half-century. They crave stability and continuity and fear change might upset the status quo.

Because of this, those in power were likely to be "older and deeply conservative men who have no interest in having an empress", Kitanaka said.

Another consideration for many people, she said, was that Japan's nationalists tended to take any criticism of the emperor extremely seriously.

"People do not want to speak up or get involved because it could make them a target, especially people who are in the public eye," she said. "Many people say it's just too dangerous."

Traditionalists meanwhile have pinned their hopes on Prince Hisahito having a son, rejecting suggestions by the panel including allowing males from former branches of the imperial family to be "adopted" into the monarchy.

In the opinion poll, conducted on 2,400 people across Japan between November and January, 35 per cent of them agreed imperial succession should go to the emperor's firstborn child, regardless of their gender. A further 41 per cent said a woman should be permitted to serve as empress if there was no male heir to the throne.

In contrast, just 10 per cent said the present law, which states that only a man can be emperor, must be preserved. There have been female emperors in Japanese history, the most recent was Empress Go-Sakuramachi, who ruled from 1762 to 1771, but the relevant laws have since been altered.

Kitanaka said she was not optimistic about there being any changes, pointing to how conservative views dominated policymaking, such as the rejection of calls by Japanese women to be allowed to keep their maiden surname after marriage.

Maya Hamada, a professor of literature at Kobe University, agreed, adding that, "The people in the Japanese government who are making these decisions are completely apart from the common sense that is being shown by the ordinary people."

As well as the debate over women's surnames, conservatives in the government have effectively blocked debate over the concept of same-sex marriages, she points out.

"They are clinging to the idea of traditional Japan, that there is some sort of unique style that must be protected, and the family, blood lines and the patriarchy are a large part of that idea," Hamada said.

She said her personal view was that it was time to replace the monarchy as an institution and that others in her university shared her view.

"I'm also seeing this attitude in more of my students. I know that is still a minority opinion, but this issue is now being discussed.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.