Masako, Crown Princess of Japan (雅子皇太子妃殿下, Masako
kōtaishihi denka, the Crown Princess Masako?,
born December 9 1963, Tokyo,
Japan) is the wife of Naruhito, Crown
Prince of Japan, the first son of the Emperor Akihito and the Empress Michiko, and a member of the Japanese
imperial family through marriage.
She was born Masako Owada (小和田
雅子, Owada
Masako?), the eldest
daughter of Hisashi Owada, a senior diplomat. She has
two younger sisters, twins named Setsuko and Reiko. Masako went to live in Moscow,
Russia with her parents when she was two years old, and attended kindergarten in Moscow. Upon
returning to Japan, she attended a private girl's school, Denenchofu Futaba, in Tokyo from elementary school through her second
year of senior high school. Masako and her family moved to the United States when her father became a guest professor at
Harvard University and also vice ambassador to the United States. She graduated from
Belmont High School in Belmont, Massachusetts, near Boston, where she was president
of the National Honor Society.
Princess Masako holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) magna
cum laude in Economics from Harvard
University and attended but did not finish the graduate course in International
Relations at Balliol College, Oxford University. She also studied briefly at the University
of Tokyo, where her father taught.
Masako was formerly employed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, where she worked with her father, the Director General and prospective Vice Minister. During her career she met
many world leaders, such as U.S. president Bill Clinton and Russian president Boris
Yeltsin. She also took part as a translator in negotiations with the United States concerning superconductors.
Marriage
Masako first met the Crown Prince when she was a student at the University of Tokyo in November of 1986, although some say
they had actually met previously when her father served as an escort to members of the royal family. Masako and the Crown Prince
were spotted together many times in public throughout 1987.
Masako's name disappeared from the list of possible imperial brides due to controversy about her grandfather, Chairman of
Chisso, a corporation infamous for the Minamata disease pollution scandal. Behind the
scenes, however, the relationship with the prince continued. The Prince proposed several times before Masako eventually gave her
consent. The Imperial Palace announced the engagement on January 19, 1993. The news came as a
huge surprise to the Japanese public, who thought the relationship had ended long before.
The Crown Prince and Masako were married in a traditional wedding ceremony on June 9,
1993.
Family and succession
Princess Aiko
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess have one child, HIH The Princess
Aiko (her official title is Toshi no Miya, or Princess Toshi), born on
December 1 2001.
The child's birth, which occurred more than eight years after her parents' marriage, sparked lively debate in Japan about whether the The Imperial Household Law of 1947 should be changed from that of primogeniture (male-preference) to equal primogeniture, which would allow a woman to inherit the
Chrysanthemum Throne.
A government-appointed panel of experts submitted a report on October 25 2005, recommending that the Imperial succession law be amended to permit equal primogeniture. On January 20 2006, Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi used part of his annual keynote speech to address the controversy when he pledged to submit a bill to the
Diet letting women ascend to the throne in order that the imperial throne be continued
into the future in a stable manner. Koizumi did not announce a timing for the legislation to be introduced nor did he provide
details about the content but he did note that it would be in line with the conclusions of the 2005 government panel.
It has been widely speculated that the immense pressure to produce an heir rather than pursuing her career as a diplomat has
put great stress on the Crown Princess.[1][2] The Japanese Constitution does not allow the members of the
royal family to engage in political activities. The Prince has made pointed and controversial comments about discourtesies and
pressures placed on his wife by the Imperial Household Agency and his wife's
desire to pursue the life of a diplomat.[3]
Nephew
Plans to change the male-only law of imperial succession were shelved after it was announced in February 2006 that the Crown
Prince's younger brother, Prince Akishino, and his wife Princess Kiko were expecting their third child. On September 6
2006, at 8:27 a.m. (Japan Standard Time), Princess
Kiko gave birth to a son, Hisahito, who is third in line to the
Chrysanthemum Throne under the current law, after his uncle, the Crown Prince and his father, Prince Akishino.
References
External links
Biographies:
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