Emperor of Japan

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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.

The role of the Emperor of Japan has alternated between that of a supreme-rank cleric with largely symbolic powers and that of an actual imperial ruler from the dawn of history until the mid-twentieth century. An underlying imperial cult (Arahitogami) has played a role, as monarch's high-priestly (mediator between people and divine) position has regarded to have come from his close (hereditary) ties with Japanese gods. Whereas violence and military operations have been regarded inconsistent with Tennō's role for at least 14 centuries - thus Japanese monarchs have not been military commanders at least since, contrary to the role of monarchs usually and in the West. However, the main function of the Emperor for most of the last millennium has usually been merely to authorize and legitimize those in power. Under Japan's present constitution, the emperor is largely a ceremonial figurehead in its constitutional monarchy (see Politics of Japan).

The current Emperor is Emperor Akihito (Tennō heika), who has been on the Chrysanthemum Throne since his father Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) died in 1989.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Imperial Palace has been called Kōkyo (皇居), and located on the site of Edo Castle in the heart of Tokyo. Earlier emperors resided in Kyoto for nearly eleven centuries.

Certain dates and details may be in dispute among Japanese historians. Many Emperors cited in the formal list of Emperors of Japan died at a very young age and can hardly be said to have "ruled" in any serious sense of the word. Others were overshadowed by their predecessors, who had ostensibly retired to a monastery but continued to exert influence in a process called "cloistered rule." It is nevertheless important to maintain the entire list, because, even today, dating by the reigns of emperors is the standard way of referencing Japanese history.

Cloistered Emperors have been known to come into conflict with their official counterparts from time to time; a notable example is the Hogen Rebellion of 1156, in which former Emperor Sutoku attempted to seize power from the then current Emperor Go-Shirakawa. Other instances, such as Emperor Go-Toba's 1221 rebellion against the Kamakura shogunate and the 1336 Kenmu Restoration under Emperor Go-Daigo, clearly show the power struggle that has taken place between the Imperial House and the military governments of Japan.

Contents

Roles

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The emperor's role is defined in Chapter I of the 1947 Constitution of Japan. Article 1 defines the emperor as the symbol of state and the unity of the people, Article 3 requires the approval of the cabinet for all acts of the emperor in matters of state, Article 4 specifically states that the emperor shall not have powers related to government, Article 6 gives the emperor the power to appoint the Prime Minister and the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, each as designated by the diet and cabinet, respectively, and Article 7 gives the emperor power to perform various ministerial functions typical of a head of state, subject to the advice and approval of the cabinet. In contrast with other constitutional monarchs, the Emperor of Japan has no reserve powers.

Although the emperor performs many of the roles of a head of state, there has been a persistent controversy within Japan as to whether the emperor is in fact a true monarch in a political sense or merely a hereditary pretender, as a political servant of a constitutional parliamentary republic. In a traditional monarchy political power devolves from the sovereign that is the monarch, with power being exercised by elected legislators on behalf of the so-called Royal prerogative and by practice of long established custom or constitutional convention. However, if there is no royal prerogative then the people who made it so by the right to make and amend the constitution are the sovereign, and the system is reversed, with the monarch actually being subordinate to them. According to this theory the emperor is best understood as a political actor whose embodiment is a mock up of a role required under Westminster system of government, but not the "head of the state" as such because he is not the sovereign. Efforts in the 1950s by conservative powers to amend the constitution to explicitly name the emperor as head of state were rejected. Regardless, the emperor does perform all the diplomatic functions normally associated with a head of state and as a result is recognized as such by foreign powers.

History

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Although the emperor has been a symbol of continuity with the past, the degree of power exercised by the emperor of Japan has varied considerably throughout Japanese history. The earliest emperors recorded in Kojiki and Nihonshoki, such as Emperor Jimmu, are considered today to have no historical credibility. Historians think the first emperor who existed historically was Emperor Ōjin, but the time of his reign is uncertain. These two books state that the imperial house kept a continuous lineage, though today some historians believe that many ancient emperors who were stated as descendants of Emperor Ōjin had no actual genealogic tie to their predecessor. The members of the imperial house of Japan rarely marry members of royal families of other countries. However, according to the Chronicles of Japan II (續日本紀), Emperor Kammu's mother (Takano no Niigasa) was a descendant of 200-years-earlier King Muryeong of Baekje, Korea. Takano's clan was low-class nobility in Japan, so Kanmu was not a prospective candidate for emperor. Kanmu and his father became emperor through a power game between clans. From the 1100s to 1868, the real power was in the hands of the shōguns, who were in theory always given their authority through the emperor. When Spanish and Portuguese explorers first contacted Japan (see Nanban period), they likened the relationship between emperor and shōgun to that of the Catholic Pope (godly, but with little political power) and king (earthly, but with a relatively large amount of political power).

The title "Emperor of Japan" is in some sense an expedient Western construct of a hereditary officer who has historically had a deeply ingrained position in Japanese society, without any necessary role in government. Japanese administrations have usually been in a position where the emperor was something that had to be accepted as a necessary inconvenience - as the Italian government has had to live with the Pope residing within the borders of Italy. We conventionally regard such a figurehead as a monarch, in the same sense as the Caliph and the Pope and, in its time, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, a republic, have been regarded as monarchs. In most (if not all) periods, that monarch has had at least some official role in the government of Japan - we should perhaps say that governments have utilized the influence of the emperor to their own advantage.

Up to rather recent centuries, Japan did not include several remoter regions of what is now regarded as its territory. The name Nippon came into use only many many centuries after the start of the current imperial line. Centralized government really only began to appear shortly before and during the time of Prince Shotoku. The emperor was more like a revered embodiment of divinity rather than the head of an actual governing administration. In Japan it has always been easy for ambitious lords to hold actual power, as such positions have not been inherently contradictory to the empror's position. Parliamentary government today continues a similar coexistence with the emperor as have various shoguns, regents, warlords, guardians, etc. It is perhaps technically a distortion to refer to such a monarch as an emperor. In Europe, people holding similar offices have retained the titles used in their own native language, which is perhaps more accurate than trying to translate such a unique office into a preexisting English term.

Historically the titles of Tenno in Japanese have never included territorial designations as is the case with many European monarchs. The position of emperor is a territory-independent phenomenon - the emperor is the emperor, even if he has followers only in one province (as was the case sometimes with the Southern and Northern courts).

By the constitution of 1889, the emperor of Japan transferred a large part of his former powers as absolute monarch to the representatives of the people, but remained as head of the empire. Though inspired by the constitutions of Europe, the new Meiji Constitution was not as democratic as some had initially hoped. The emperor was given broad and vague "reserve powers" which in turn were exploited by the prime minister and various cliques around the emperor. By the 1930s the Japanese cabinet was largely composed of pseudo-fascist military leaders who used the emperor and his supposed divinity as an ultra-nationalistic rallying point for expansion of the Empire. When World War II erupted, the emperor was the symbol soldiers were indoctrinated to fight and die for. The emperor himself was hidden from sight however, and his actual role during this period is disputed. It is commonly believed he was largely sidelined by the military. Controversy still remains as to the role Hirohito played in commanding Japanese forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War.

Post World War II

Image:Macarthur hirohito.jpg After Japan's surrender to Allied forces ending WWII, 'emperor' became a ceremonial title only, with real power residing in a legislative body; in essence, its de jure status is similar to the de facto status of the British monarchy. US General Douglas MacArthur insisted that Hirohito remain emperor to keep him as a symbol of continuity and cohesion within Japanese society. Despite Truman's desire to have Hirohito tried for war crimes, Truman consented, and Hirohito kept his status, though he was forced to disavow the emperor's previous claims of being an arahitogami, living god.

Since the war, the emperor has become a strictly ceremonial figure within Japanese society. Though he presides over certain government events, he is now simply a figurehead who is explicitly banned from participating in politics in any way.

Succession is now regulated by laws passed by the Japanese Diet. The current law excludes females from the succession despite the historical existence of female occupants of the throne. A change to this law is being considered, since, as of 2005, the only child of The Imperial Highness the Crown Prince Naruhito is female. (In the list of emperors of Japan, the empresses regnant are those with an asterisk after their reigning periods.)

Marriage traditions

Japanese monarchs have been, as much as others elsewhere, dependent on making alliances with powerful chiefs and other monarchs. Many such alliances were sealed by marriages. The specific feature in Japan has been the fact that these marriages have been soon incorporated as elements of tradition which controlled the marriages of later generations, though the original practical alliance had lost its real meaning.

Beginning from the 7th and 8th centuries, emperors primarily took women of the Fujiwara clan as their highest wives - the most probable mothers of future monarchs. This was cloaked as a tradition of marriage between heirs of two kamis, Shinto gods: descendants of Amaterasu with descendants of the family kami of the Fujiwara. (Originally, the Fujiwara were descended from relatively minor nobility, thus their kami is an unremarkable one in the Japanese myth world.) The reality behind such marriages was an alliance between an imperial prince and a Fujiwara lord, his father-in-law or grandfather, the latter with his resources supporting the prince to the throne and most often controlling the government. These arrangements created the tradition of regents (sessho and kampaku), with these positions allowed to be held only by a Fujiwara sekke lord.

Earlier, the emperors had married females from families of the government-holding Soga lords, and females of the imperial clan itself, i.e various-degree cousins and often even their own sisters (half-sisters). Several imperials of the 5th and 6th centuries were children of a couple of half-siblings. These marriages often were alliance or succession devices: the Soga lord ensured the domination of a prince, to be put as puppet to the throne; or a prince ensured the combination of two imperial descents, to strengthen his own and his children's claim to the throne. Marriages were also a means to seal a reconciliation between two imperial branches.

After a couple of centuries, emperors could no longer make anyone from outside such families a primary wife, whatever would have been the expediency of such a marriage and power or wealth brought by such. Only very rarely was a prince without a mother of said traditional descents allowed to ascend. The earlier necessity and expediency had mutated into a strict tradition that did not allow for current expediency or necessity, but only dictated that daughters of a restricted circle of families were eligible brides, because they had produced eligible brides for centuries. Tradition is sometimes more forceful than a law.

The five Fujiwara families Ichijo, Kujo, Nijo, Konoe and Takatsukasa were the primary source of imperial brides from the 8th century to the 19th century, even more often than daughters of the imperial clan itself. Fujiwara daughters were thus the usual empresses and mothers of emperors.

The result has been a relative inbreeding in the imperial family. The five Sekkan families and the branches of the imperial clan (Yamato) form a genetic "village".

The acceptable imperial wives, brides for an emperor and for a crown prince, were even legislated into the Meiji-era imperial house laws, which stipulated that daughters of Sekke (the five main branches of the higher Fujiwara) and daughters of the imperial clan itself were primarily acceptable brides.

Since that law was repealed in the aftermath of WWII, the present emperor Akihito became the first crown prince for over a thousand years to have an empress outside the previously eligible circle.

Naming

Due to linguistic and cultural differences between Japan and the Western world, naming the emperors of Japan is often troublesome. While scholastic texts in Japan use "{name} tennō" consistently, in texts by English-speaking academics several variants have been used, such as "Emperor {name}", "the {name} Emperor", and "{name} Tenno", although "Emperor {name}" appears to be the most common among these, particularly for the emperors prior to Emperor Meiji. What is often not understood, however, is that emperors are posthumously named "{name} tennō", and thus the word "tennō, or "emperor", actually forms a part of their proper name. This is particularly misunderstood with respect to the emperors from Emperor Meiji onward, since the convention now is to posthumously name the emperors the same name as the era over which they preside. This leads to references such as "the Meiji emperor", meaning the emperor of the Meiji era. Such constructs are never used in Japanese, however.

In English, the term Mikado (御門 or 帝 or みかど), which literally means "exalted gate", used to be used to refer to the emperor of Japan; this usage is now outdated, as it is in Japanese. In Japanese, the emperors of Japan, but not of other countries, are known as tennō (天皇), which literally means "heavenly emperor" or "god-king". Sumeramikoto (lit. "heavenly ruler above the clouds") was also used in Old Japanese.

There are three Japanese words that describe the concept of "emperor": tennō (天皇) is used specifically to describe the emperor of Japan, kōtei (皇帝, lit. "emperor of emperors") is used primarily to describe a Chinese emperor or a foreign emperor, and teiō (帝王, lit. "emperor of kings") is used to describe foreign emperors as well but never a Chinese emperor. Some scholars point out that the use of ten (天, "heaven") was, in relation to the Chinese concept of tentei (天帝, "heaven's emperor" or "the god in the sky"), meant to show that the emperor's duty was not limited to political or military duties but included spiritual and religious duties as well.

Traditionally, East Asians consider it discourteous to call a person of noble rank by their given name. This convention is almost dead, but still observed for the Imperial family. In fact, the emperor is never to be referred to by name (imina) unless he is dead. Instead, past emperors are called by posthumous names such as Emperor Jimmu, Emperor Kammu and Meiji. Since the Meiji era, era names are also used as posthumous names. The current emperor on the throne is almost always referred to as Tennō Heika (天皇陛下, lit. "His Majesty the Emperor") or solemnly as Kinjō Tennō (今上天皇). On the other hand, in ordinary conversations he is referred to simply as Heika, Okami or To-gin san ('To-gin' is a frank expression of Kinjō). The current emperor is not called by the current era name: the era will become his posthumous name. But today this custom tends to be followed more loosely, as described below. In English, the recent emperors are called by their personal names according to Western convention. As explained above, in Japanese this sounds offensive and, in some contexts, blasphemous.

For example, the previous emperor is usually called Hirohito in English, but after his death he was renamed Shōwa Tennō and is now referred to exclusively by this name in Japanese. However, during his reign, he was never referred as Hirohito or Shōwa Tennō in Japanese. Rather, he was simply referred to as Tennō Heika (meaning "His Majesty the Emperor").

See also List of Japanese Emperors.

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.

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

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:

  • 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.

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 Taishō period (1912-1926). The Japanese monarchy also relied on the specially designated collateral lines or shinnōke (shinnō houses).

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.

The two influential patterns of maternal descent were:

  • 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.

If the immediate imperial family failed to produce an heir, one of the shinnōke could provide the future emperor. There were four such collateral lines in the Edo period: Fushimi, Katsura, Arisugawa, and Kan'in. Emperor Kōkaku (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 (ōke) of the imperial family during the Meiji period. This house and its offshoots were reduced to commoner status in 1947.

Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan had eight female tennō 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 Kōgyoku (also Empress Saimei) and Empress Jitō, 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 Genshō, Empress Kōken (also Empress Shōtoku), Empress Meishō and Empress Go-Sakuramachi, were unwed daughters of previous emperors. None of these empresses married or gave birth after ascending the throne.

A panel that was dealing with the succession issue recommended on October 25, 2005 that females be allowed to ascend to the Japanese throne. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that he would submit a bill to the Diet by the end of the year.[1]

See also

References


External links

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