It's a Boy!
The little prince lets Japan off the hook -- for now.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

THE BIRTH of a child is always a joyous occasion, but the birth of a 5-pound, 10-ounce son to Japanese Prince Akishino and his wife, Princess Kiko, has been a cause for particular celebration there for a single reason: the baby's gender. The baby is the first boy to be born in the imperial household in 41 years, thereby allowing the country to sidestep, at least for now, an emotional national debate about whether to permit a female to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne. As the conservative newspaper Sankei Shimbun exulted, "The birth of the little prince has completely erased the dark mood of Japanese worried about the nation's future."

Our best wishes to the family, but it's too bad the arrival of the little prince is letting the country and its archaic system of royal succession off the hook. The baby had hardly had his first diaper changed when politicians rushed to postpone consideration of a measure that would have allowed female succession; Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Princess Masako, have a 4-year-old daughter.

It's a bit odd to complain that the rules of any particular monarchy are outmoded; in this democratic age, the entire institution is anachronistic. Yet the Japanese emperor has evolved with the times: Once revered as a living god, the emperor renounced his divine status after World War II to become, as the Japanese constitution provides, "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people." Symbols matter, and in a country whose institutions and society remain pervaded with sexism, a female emperor could hardly be a better one.