Even a new prince can't prevent the move to a female heir
WHEN Princess Kiko, second daughter-in-law of Emperor Akihito, became pregnant last January, it seemed like an answered prayer. Hopes were high that, at last, the world’s oldest hereditary monarchy would have a male heir.
On Wednesday, after months of speculation, the question will finally be settled when Princess Kiko will give birth by Caesarean section.
NI_MPU('middle');But courtiers are now worried that even the arrival of a male heir may not guarantee the long-term survival of the Imperial family. To ensure the continuation of the 2,000-year-old Chrysanthemum throne, senior members of the Imperial Household Agency (IHA) are discussing changes to the law to ensure that, if necessary at some time in the future, a woman could reign as empress.......................
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2341874,00.html
About a boy: Dynasty, Japan-style
Princess Kiko will have her third child this week - and the government is praying for Japan's first male imperial heir since 1965 to lift a succession crisis, which could render the royal family extinct within a couple of generations. David McNeill reports on a nation gripped by baby fever.
For the next week, the eyes of much of Japan will be on a room in a private hospital in Tokyo, where a 39-year-old woman is waiting to deliver her baby by caesarean section. When the baby utters its first scream, television programmes will be interrupted, politicians will make speeches and newspapers will distribute special supplements: four pages for a boy, two for a girl.
This is no ordinary baby, but one born into controversy and with the weight of the world's oldest hereditary institution on its shoulders. If it is a boy, he will one day head a dynasty that claims to trace its roots back to before the Romans stepped on British soil. If it is a girl, she will come into the world to the sound of a collective sigh of disappointment. Not an easy start in life.........................
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1359799.ece