Japan Worries About the Future of the Imperial House - A Woman as Tenno?

Is Japan's monarchy dying out? The question sounds outrageous, but it is not absurd. Not only is Japan's society ageing more rapidly than that of any other industrialised nation. At the same time, the country's hereditary monarchy, the oldest in the world, is gradually running out of offspring. The problem: only male descendants of the male family line are allowed on the throne according to current law. The female members of the Tenno's family have no claim to it. If they marry, they even leave the imperial family and become private citizens. As a result, there are theoretically only three candidates to succeed Emperor Naruhito (61), whose daughter Princess Aiko (19) is thus denied the throne: the Tenno's brother, Crown Prince Akishino (55), his 14-year-old son Prince Hisahito and Naruhito's uncle Masahito - who is already 85 years old. If the women of the imperial family were also part of the succession, the problem of offspring would be solved at a stroke. A look at Japan's history shows that there have already been eight empresses. The last so far was Go-Sakuramachi, who ascended the throne in 1762.