Emperor of Japan

The Emperor of Japan (天皇 tennō) is a constitutionally-recognized symbol of the Japanese nation and the unity of its people. He is the head of the Japanese Imperial Family, the royal family of Japan.

Succession

Millennia ago, the Japanese Imperial Family developed its own peculiar system of hereditary succession. It has been non-primogenitural, more or less agnatic, based mostly on rotation. Today, Japan uses strict agnatic primogeniture - in other words, pure Salic law. It was adopted from Prussia, from which Japan took much influence in the 1870s.

Related Topics:
Primogeniture - Salic law - Prussia

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Strict agnatic primogeniture is, however, directly contradictory to several old Japanese traditions of Imperial succession.

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The controlling principles and their interaction were apparently very complex and sophisticated, leading to even idiosyncratic outcomes. Some chief principles apparent in the succession have been:

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• Females were allowed to succeed (but not allowed to be inherited by their own children, unless the father of the child also happened to be an agnate of the imperial house). However, female accession was clearly much rarer than male.
• Adoption was possible and a much used way to increase the number of succession-entitled heirs (however, the adopted child had to be a child of another member of the Imperial House).
• Abdication was used very often, and occurred more often than a death on the throne. In those days, the tenno's chief task was priestly (or godly), containing so many repetitive rituals that it was deemed that the incumbent deserved pampered retirement as an honored former emperor.
• Primogeniture was not used - rather, in the early days, the imperial house practised something resembling a system of rotation. Very often a brother (or sister) followed the elder sibling even in the case of the predecessor leaving children. The "turn" of the next generation came more often after several individuals of the senior generation. Rotation went often between two or more of the branches of the imperial house, thus more or less distant cousins succeeded each other. Emperor Go-Saga even decreed an official alternation between heirs of his two sons, which system continued for a couple of centuries (leading finally to shōgun-induced (or -utilized) strife between these two branches, "Southern" and "Northern" Emperors). Towards the end, the alternates were very distant cousins counted in degrees of male descent (but all that time, intermarriages occurred within the imperial house). After a while, however, probably due to Confucian influence, inheritence by sons - but not always, or even most often, the eldest son - became the norm.

Historically, the succession to Japan's Chrysanthemum Throne has always passed to descendants in male line from the imperial lineage. Generally they have been males, though of the over one hundred monarchs there have been eight women as tenno.

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In part, the Japanese imperial dynasty owes its longevity in the male line to the use of concubines, a practice that only ended in the Taish? period (1912-1926). The Japanese monarchy also relied on the specially designated collateral lines or shinn?ke (shinn? houses).

Related Topics:
Concubine - 1912 - 1926 - Shinn?ke

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It seems that for the recent thousand years, sons of an imperial male and a Fujiwara woman had preferential position in the succession. Also, sons of the empress had preferential position to sons of concubines - but quite often, Fujiwara women were empresses and concubines came from some less exalted nobility. Some emperors even had two empresses simultaneously (kogo, chugu) after a decree from the reign of Emperor Ichijō. There are indications that between a son of a Fujiwara woman and son of an imperial princess, the Fujiwara descent was given precedence. This may have been caused by the higher influence of the said Fujiwara's relatives, but may also have been a part of tradition, perhaps due to the preference to have an emperor with two-side descent from the two kamis.

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The two influential patterns of maternal descent were:

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• a powerful maternal grandfather ensured a puppet on the throne in the person of an underage grandson, himself becoming their guardian. This pattern was usual in the Soga and Fujiwara eras, and even some later shoguns used their daughters in that way. This sometimes also occurred with a father-in-law and an imperial son-in-law (but regent lords preferred underage grandsons to adult son-in-laws).
• a prince having descent from two rival branches of the imperial dynasty, one from the paternal side and the other from the maternal side, was elevated to the throne as a symbol of reconciliation.

Besides the empress, the emperor could take concubines, and the son he had by a concubine would be recognized as heir to the throne if the empress did not give birth to an heir. Concubines were allowed also to other dynasts (shinno, o). With the help of polygamy, the imperial clan thus was capable of producing more male offspring, increasing the probability that the dynasty survived in the male line.

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If the immediate imperial family failed to produce an heir, one of the shinn?ke could provide the future emperor. There were four such collateral lines in the Edo period: Fushimi, Katsura, Arisugawa, and Kan'in. Emperor K?kaku (reigned 1780-1817), the lineal ancestor of all subsequent emperors, was a scion of the Kan'in house. A shinnoke could be inherited by a prince of another branch by permission of the emperor, and alternatively could be revived (the princedoms, shinnoke, seem more or less the common property of the imperial clan). The Edo-period Katsura and Arisugawa houses died out in 1881 and 1913, respectively (though they were revived later, the Arisugawa as Takamatsu, its older name, and the Katsura in the person of the second son of Prince Mikasa). The Fushimi branch, originating from the 15th century, produced a vast number of children in two generations in the 19th century. A scion of the Fushimi house succeeded to the Kan'in house in 1884. The Fushimi house was the progenitor of nine other cadet branches (?ke) of the imperial family during the Meiji period. This house and its offshoots were reduced to commoner status in 1947.

Related Topics:
Shinn?ke - Edo period - Fushimi - Katsura - Arisugawa - Kan'in - 1881 - 1913 - Prince Mikasa - ?ke - Meiji period - 1947

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Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan had eight female tenn? or reigning empresses, all of them daughters of the male line of the imperial clan. None ascended purely as a wife or as a widow of an emperor. Imperial daughters and granddaughters, however, usually ascended the throne as a sort of a "stop gap" measure - if a suitable male was not available or some imperial branches were in rivalry so that a compromise was needed. Almost all Japanese empresses and dozens of emperors abdicated - many empresses once a suitable male descendant in the male line of imperial descendants became old enough. (Suitable male means after his toddler years - Japanese emperors have often ascended as children, as young as 6 or 8 years old, as reaching the age of legal majority was not a requirement. The high-priestly duties were deemed possible for a walking child - and several emperors abdicated/reached their entitled retirement while still in their teens.) Three empresses, Empress Suiko, Empress K?gyoku (also Empress Saimei) and Empress Jit?, were widows of deceased emperors and princesses of the blood imperial in their own right. One, Empress Gemmei, was the widow of a crown prince and a princess of the blood imperial. The other four, Empress Gensh?, Empress K?ken (also Empress Sh?toku), Empress Meish? and Empress Go-Sakuramachi, were unwed daughters of previous emperors. None of these empresses married or gave birth after ascending the throne.

Related Topics:
Meiji Restoration - Empress Suiko - Empress K?gyoku - Empress Jit? - Empress Gemmei - Empress Gensh? - Empress K?ken - Empress Meish? - Empress Go-Sakuramachi

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