Why do Japan's political leaders appear increasingly willing to change the law to permit women to ascend to the throne?

First, the current generation of imperial children continues to comprise Princess Aiko and seven other girls. Second, the window of opportunity for Crown Princess Masako as well as Princess Kiko to bear additional children is narrowing. Third, Aiko just turned three years old.

If the law is changed, Aiko is the logical candidate to be designated the future heir. The education of a likely heir begins early, and the ambiguous situation is no doubt troublesome to officials charged with planning Aiko's education, not to mention to her parents, the crown prince and crown princess.

The confusion regarding Aiko's future was likely one of several factors that explains Crown Prince Naruhito's blunt remarks during his news conference in May 2004 before leaving, solo, to attend royal weddings in Denmark and Spain.

Crown prince's call for action

I interpreted the crown prince's remarks as an indictment of the notion that Masako's primary duty is to produce a male heir, and also as a call for action to change the law to permit Aiko to ascend to the throne.

The fact that Naruhito's remarks continue to reverberate was evidenced at two recent imperial press conferences. During his Dec. 23 meeting with reporters, Emperor Akihito expressed pain and bewilderment at his oldest son's remark. Previous to that, Prince Fumihito voiced regret that his older brother, without first conferring with the emperor, had lashed out at still unspecified individuals for denying Masako's personality.

Fumihito elaborated, ``I am not sure whether what I want to do should be the same as what my public duties should be.'' The latter remark came across as a rebuke of the crown prince and especially of the crown princess for whining about limited opportunities to travel abroad.

If a TV journalist looking for sound bites asked 100 average Japanese, ``Do you think that the Imperial Household Agency should allow the imperial family members more freedom?'' I suspect that a large majority would answer along the lines of, ``Yes, definitely!'' Bashing the Imperial Household Agency for overregulating the royal family members' lives is a fashionable postwar pastime.

But do the Japanese people really want royal family members to do as they please while enjoying a privileged lifestyle financed by tax money?

Fumihito's remark reflected an interpretation held by many people inside the palace, namely the reason that many Japanese support the throne is that they view royal family members as unselfish individuals who, although they are denied a host of simple pleasures such as the freedom to take casual strolls in the neighborhood, nonetheless faithfully carry out their duties on behalf of the people and the country.

The Imperial Household Agency definitely wants royal family members to be perceived as putting duty before happiness.

There is grave concern in the palace that the crown prince and especially the crown princess will be interpreted as selfish.

But what are reasonable duties for a crown princess? After all, even if one puts aside the issue that the present crown princess would like to play a diplomatic role rather than simply to serve as a womb, one must remember that plain biological luck plays an important role in determining whether procreation takes place. Thus, not only currently but also in the future, the requirement that only males ascend to the throne provides the crown princess with a potentially unanswerable duty.

Historically in Japan and elsewhere, the way that male lineages were preserved was through a system of concubines. Only approximately half of all Japanese emperors were born to what today would be considered the empress. The others, including, most recently, Emperor Taisho (reign 1912-26), were born to concubines.

However, the re-establishment of the concubine system seems as unlikely as the reinstitution of the bakufu (the shogunate), so a solution must be found elsewhere.

Why has the Diet failed to dispense with the heir problem by doing what European constitutional monarchies did to suit the changing times, namely, to change the law to permit for reigning empresses? After all, recent public opinion polls show that more than 80 percent of Japanese support a change in the law.

Naruhito's emerging role as a spokesman for a new model of fatherhood in Japan attests to changing societal trends.

During a February 2003 news conference, the crown prince stressed, ``The help of fathers in raising children whenever possible not only lightens the burden on mothers, but it is also a very good way for fathers to strengthen their relationship with their children.'' The fact that the crown prince appears to be a hands-on father, even if we have not seen images of him changing diapers, challenges strictly defined gender roles.

However, many pragmatic opponents of allowing reigning empresses express concern about whether a Japanese princess in line for the throne would be able to find a husband willing to play the supporting role. If not, then once again the monarchy could face a crisis over the lack of an heir.

The engagement of Princess Sayako hardly alleviates concerns because she is not in line for the throne and moreover, legally she will lose her royal status upon marriage.

European royal houses have a long tradition of inter-marriage, but Japan's royal house has no such tradition. The Japanese royal house maintains friendly relations with the Thai royal house, but it is unlikely that a Japanese princess in line for the throne will find a husband in a second or third Thai prince.

Right-wing supporters of the monarchy object to reigning empresses for a different reason. They insist that if the imperial line passes down through a woman the supposedly unbroken line (bansei ikkei) said to date from precisely Feb. 11, 660 B.C., will be broken.

But Japan has had empresses in the past, so why the fuss about the possibility of a reigning empress in the future among individuals who cling dearly to the invented concept of the unbroken imperial line? The answer to this question is that none of the previous eight reigning empresses bore children who succeeded to the throne. The worst-case scenario of all for the far right would be a reigning empress with a foreign husband. Role of interpreter of the past

However, history shows that fervent far-right supporters of the throne can accommodate shifting definitions of the monarchy, as I have detailed in my book. The far right will live with reigning empresses if that is the only way to preserve this nationalistic symbol.

I believe that even if the throne were to be abolished, Japan's far right, by devising a new rallying national symbol, would carry on with its nationalistic agenda with far less disruption than one might imagine. The hypothesis that the monarchy is nothing more than a convenient tool for the far right should be explored in a different essay, however.

I suspect that we shall see the law changed to provide for reigning empresses sometime in the coming years, but I conclude with the following caveat. In their study of the past, historians repeatedly encounter predictions by social scientists that appear utterly ludicrous in retrospect, and for this reason I prefer the role of interpreter of the past to that of forecaster.

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The author is one of two recipients of the fourth annual Asahi Shimbun-sponsored Jiro Osaragi Prize for scholarly writing for ``Kokumin-no Tenno,'' the Japanese version of his book ``The People's Emperor.'' He is associate professor of history and director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University.(IHT/Asahi: January 7,2005)