Trapped by tradition? The concern surrounding Japan’s Crown Princess Masako
When a career-driven commoner married Japan’s Crown Prince in 1993, she was hailed as the country’s Princess Diana. But little has been seen of Princess Masako since, and with succession in sight, there is real concern about her wellbeing.
In a private wing of the Togu Palace in central Tokyo, Japan’s next Empress lives unseen and little spoken of. Princess Masako, a beautiful, ambitious commoner, arrived here 24 years ago, wearing her wedding kimono, and has rarely left since. To observers of the world’s oldest monarchy, the strange, lost life of Masako Owada is both a personal tragedy and an indictment of the royal family’s ancient ways of doing things.
Tracing its line back almost 2500 years, the Japanese Imperial House stands as a symbol of permanence and serenity, but its current mood is one of crisis. Earlier this year, in a rare television address, Emperor Akihito, 83, indicated that he will soon abdicate – a move that will bring his eldest son, Crown Prince Naruhito, 57, to the throne.
When that happens, an unavoidable spotlight will fall on Masako, the once-vivacious wife who has been likened to “a broken butterfly”.
When Naruhito married Masako in 1993, she was hailed as Japan’s Princess Diana. “Masako-Mania” swept the country, reflecting a sense that – revered as it was – the monarchy was ripe for change. Masako had lived in the United
States and Britain, she spoke several languages, and promised to bring a new verve and energy to the Court. Women in particular identified with the princess, and applauded when – in what sounded like a declaration of intent – she announced: “My task is to find a healthy balance between the role of a crown princess and my own personality.”
It was clear what Masako meant. This royal bride did not intend to live
by the old, patriarchal rules – keeping her eyes lowered and speaking prepared lines in a courtly whisper. Highly-educated and set on a career in the foreign service, she had turned down Naruhito’s first proposal, before succumbing under pressure from her family. There seems little doubt that Masako did, indeed, attempt to bring fresh ideas to the court. What she had not reckoned with was the ferocity with which the traditionalists would fight their turf.
Today she cuts a sorry, mysterious figure, high in status, but ignored and looked down upon by the royal establishment. The country’s deferential media barely mentions her, and inquiries into almost any aspect of her life are firmly rebuffed by courtiers. Even her husband has been unable to help her. For while the royal family may serve as figureheads, every significant aspect of their lives is controlled by the powerful Imperial Household Agency (IHA), a 1000-strong secretariat that is viscerally hostile to change.
One of the IHA’s preoccupations has been – to put it bluntly – keeping women in their place. Only males can ascend to the semi-mystical Chrysanthemum Throne, and the lives of royal wives and daughters are wreathed in layers of antiquated protocol that dictate everything from how they must address their husbands to how often they should change their outfits (three times daily!).
While opinion polls show that a large majority of Japanese favour liberalising these rules – including allowing women to reign – the IHA remains implacably opposed. The agency’s big problem, however, is that the royal family is running out of boys. And that has been a key factor in Masako’s plight.
When she and Naruhito were married, no male baby had been born into the line of succession for 25 years. “There was a phenomenal amount of expectation on her,” says Hinota Matsuda, a London-based journalist and publisher. “I don’t just mean the froth in the newspapers, but real pressure from within the establishment, which made it clear that fixing this problem was her job.”
The couple’s wedding was greeted with wild enthusiasm and a sense that a monarchy able to trace its direct ancestors back for an astounding
126 generations was about to enter a new era.
There was good reason for all the excitement. Masako was by some way the cleverest and most accomplished woman ever to have married into the Imperial family. The daughter of a high-flying diplomat, she had attended kindergarten in Moscow and high school in the United States. After graduating from Harvard University she returned to Japan, landed a job in the foreign ministry and later took a post-graduate degree at Oxford, where a contemporary remembers: “She was quite an enchanting mix – pretty much Western outwardly, with an American accent, but with a
She wondered if she would be suitable for the demands of royal life.
kind of Oriental serenity.”
Naruhito had first set eyes on his future bride at a tennis tournament in 1982. As ever, the Crown Prince was closely guarded by aides, but he managed to speak briefly to the girl who had caught his eye, and he later asked his staff to find out who she was.
What he heard was not encouraging. Masako was not only a commoner, but the daughter of a salaried government employee. In other words, lacking the exacting pedigree the royal family would demand. And then there was the potential problem of the modern ideas about rank and privilege she was liable to have picked up while living abroad.
For his part, Naruhito, while a decent, conscientious young man, was hardly in the tradition of the great seducers. He was slight of build, socially awkward and, despite having studied at Oxford himself, was steeped in the kind of insular attitudes that prevail at Court. He had passed his 25th birthday having – so far as anyone knew – never had a serious girlfriend.
Yet Naruhito persisted. The couple met again at a tea party in the grounds of the Akasaka Palace, the government’s guesthouse for foreign dignitaries, and a number of discreet meetings followed, several of them at the British Embassy, under the auspices of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Society. Still, the romance developed slowly. The Prince was eager, Masako hesitant, the courtiers flatly opposed. Supposedly, Naruhito told his family that if he couldn’t marry Masako he wouldn’t marry anyone, but when he finally proposed, she turned him down. It wasn’t, she apparently explained, that she didn’t care for him; but she wondered whether she would be suitable for