Japan’s Princess Mako marries commoner, loses royal status

1.4k

View
comments

Princess Mako of Japan has given up her royal title to marry her commoner boyfriend in a move that has sharply divided public opinion. 

Mako, 30, the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito and niece of reigning Emperor Naruhito, tied the knot with university sweetheart Kei Komuro, a commoner, in Tokyo on Tuesday after an eight-year engagement.

Japan’s strict laws of succession forbid women from ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne and force them to give up their titles if they marry commoners. 

The low-key ceremony, which was met with protests, was held behind closed doors without any of the pop and pageantry of other Japanese royal weddings, which traditionally include a reception and banquet.  

Mako was pictured leaving her family’s residence at Akasaka Estate early Tuesday, bowing to father Crown Prince Akishino and mother Crown Princess Kiko before sharing a hug with sister Princess Kako. She then went alone by car to marry Kei at a registry office, away from cameras and a public who are divided over the relationship. 

Afterwards, the newlyweds held a press conference in a somberly-decorated hotel function room which they paid for, in which they apologised for any distress that their union has caused. 

Reading out a prepared statement, Mako defended her decision to marry while describing Kei as ‘irreplaceable’ and adding that ‘our marriage is a necessary step for us to be able to protect our hearts.’

She also criticised news reports written during their engagement which she accused of spreading false information and ‘one-sided rumours’, which she said had left her ‘feeling sadness and pain.’  The royal household previously revealed she is suffering PTSD. 

They then bowed for the cameras before departing to start their new life, which is likely to be based in the US where Kei is working for a law firm. 

The decision has led to comparisons with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who also turned their backs on royal duties to live privately in the US.   

Formerly the Princess of Akishino, Mako, who previously held a high profile position within the royal family, has now taken her husband’s name and will go by Mako Komuro – the first time in her life that she has had a surname.

In his pre-prepared statement, Kei apologised for any distress caused but said that he loved Mako and would support her throughout their life together.

‘I love Mako. We only get one life, and I want us to spend it with the one we love,’ he said. ‘I feel very sad that Mako has been in a bad condition, mentally and physically, because of the false accusations.’

The couple did not answer questions to make the experience easier for Mako, but did issue a page of written responses to five pre-selected questions.  

One asked about Mako’s condition, to which she responded: ‘Not good’. 

Mako and Komuro met at Tokyo’s International Christian University in 2013 and became engaged in secret, before announcing their intention to marry in September 2017. 

But the wedding was delayed following a financial scandal involving an unpaid debt allegedly owed by Kei’s mother and suggestions he was marrying for money.   

The dispute involves whether money his mother received from her former fiancé was a loan or a gift. Mako´s father asked Komuro to clarify, and he wrote a statement defending himself, but it is still unclear if the dispute has been fully resolved.

In the wake of the scandal, he moved to the US to study law and recently graduated from Fordham University in New York, where he now works for a law firm. 

He returned to Tokyo last month before it was announced that the pair would finally wed.

As part of the announcement, the royal household said Mako would forgo all traditional ceremonies and surrender a £1million payment she was entitled to according to Japanese tradition.

She is the first imperial family member since World War II to not receive the payment while marrying a commoner and chose to do so because of the criticism over her marrying a man some consider unfit for the princess. 

The pair are now expected to move to the US to start a new life together. 

‘There will be different kinds of difficulties as we start our new life, but we’ll walk together as we have done so in the past,’ Mako said, thanking everyone who supported the couple.

Mako, apparently referring to mental health issues, noted ‘many people have difficulty and hurt feelings while trying to protect their hearts’. 

She said: ‘I sincerely hope that our society will be a place where more people can live and protect their hearts with the help of warm help and support from others.’ 

Mako, who turned 30 three days before the wedding, is a niece of Emperor Naruhito. Her father is the Crown Prince and is expected to inherit the throne because Naruhito has only one child – a daughter – and his wife, 57-year-old Empress Masako, is unlikely to have another. 

The princess’s position within the family means she would have been afforded a full royal wedding had she chosen to marry a fellow royal.

The wedding of her uncle Naruhito, the then-Crown Prince and current Emperor, was a full-blown spectacle, complete with a motorcade that passed thousands of screaming well-wishers lining the roads of central Tokyo.  

Instead it was a subdued, low-key event without any family present to witness the pair wed.

On Tuesday morning, she left the palace wearing a pale blue dress and holding a bouquet. She bowed outside the residence of her parents, Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, and her sister Kako, and then the sisters hugged each other.  

‘To me, Kei is irreplaceable. Our marriage is a necessary step for us to be able to protect our hearts,’ Mako told reporters after the marriage was registered. 

‘I have been scared, feeling sadness and pain whenever one-sided rumours turn into groundless stories.’ 

Despite the negative press coverage and small but angry protests against the marriage, more than half of respondents in a survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said they thought it was a good thing.

The most important thing is that she is happy,’ Tokyo resident Machiko Yoshimoto, in her 60s, told AFP.

‘It would have been better to have a festive atmosphere, instead of this difficult situation, which is rather sad and regrettable,’ said Shigehiro Hashimoto, 54. 

The Imperial Household Law of 1947 stipulates that only males in the family’s male line can ascend to the throne. 

It means that while Emperor Naruhito has a daughter Aiko, 19, it is his brother the Crown Prince Fumihito who takes precedence. 

Similarly the Crown Prince’s daughters, Mako and Kako, 26, will be passed over in favour of his son Prince Hisahito, 15. 

There is only one other man – the Emperor’s 85-year-old uncle, Prince Hitachi – who is eligible for the throne under current rules.

If the young Prince Hisahito does not have a male child, the line of succession will be broken – prompting some debate about changing the rules, with polls showing the Japanese public broadly support women being allowed to rule.

Although traditionalists are vehemently against the idea, Japan has had as many as eight empresses in the past. The last one, Gosakuramachi, was on the throne about 250 years ago.

There has been some debate over changing the rules, and a government panel in July compiled notes on the issue including a proposal that royal women stay in the family, even after marriage. 

 

From rule-following princess to a royal rebel: How Mako of Japan, 30, who studied abroad in Edinburgh and had a work placement at Coventry Museums has turned her back on tradition to wed the New York-based lawyer she met at university 

By Stephanie Linning for MailOnline 

 

Weddings are supposed to be a day of untainted love and joy.

But not so for Japan‘s Princess Mako, who has today renounced her royal title after going against tradition to marry her university sweetheart. 

The issue has arisen because her long-term boyfriend Kei Komuro, 30, a lawyer with a New York law firm whom she met at Tokyo’s International Christian University almost a decade ago, is a commoner. 

By marrying him today, Mako, 30, the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito and niece of reigning Emperor Naruhito, has chosen love over her title, duties as a royal, and official place within the family.

Japan’s strict laws of succession forbid women from ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne and force them to give up their titles if they marry commoners. 

The wedding has sent shockwaves through Japan – a country where the royal family face huge pressure to conform to tradition and meet exacting standards of behaviour, with each move intensely scrutinised.  

It marks a dramatic, if slow burning, departure for the princess, a graduate of Leicester University who worked at Coventry Museums, who was happy to conform to expectation in her early years. 

Born on October 23, 1991, Mako is the oldest child of Fumihito, Prince Akishino, and his wife, Princess Kiko, who were college sweethearts, like Mako and Komuro.  

The birth of the first granddaughter to then-Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko was greeted by intense media coverage despite the fact that she could not, by law, inherit the throne. 

This included the proud father telling reporters after viewing his newborn daughter: ‘She’s cute. She looks like me.’

Mako was followed three years later by her sister Kako, and the two were joined by their brother Hisahito in 2006, the first male born to the imperial family since 1965.

The Imperial Household Law of 1947 stipulates that only males in the family’s male line can ascend to the throne.  It means that while Emperor Naruhito has a daughter Aiko, 19, it is his brother the Crown Prince Fumihito who takes precedence. 

Similarly the Crown Prince’s daughters, Mako and Kako, 26, will be passed over in favour of his son Prince Hisahito, 15. 

There is only one other man – the Emperor’s 85-year-old uncle, Prince Hitachi – who is eligible for the throne under current rules. 

If the young Prince Hisahito does not have a male child, the line of succession will be broken – prompting some debate about changing the rules, with polls showing the Japanese public broadly support women being allowed to rule.

Although traditionalists are vehemently against the idea, Japan has had as many as eight empresses in the past.

The last one, Gosakuramachi, was on the throne about 250 years ago.

Though Mako initially followed royal tradition and attended the elite Gakushuin school through the end of high school, she broke with custom by not continuing at the institution for her university studies, choosing instead to attend Tokyo’s International Christian University.

It is here she met Komuro, at a meeting of students planning to go abroad in 2012. Komuro, raised by a single mother, had a much less privileged start in life and spent some time working for tourism promotion near Tokyo to earn money.

Mako spent a year at the University of Edinburgh and reportedly studied for a period in Dublin. 

She graduated in 2014 with a degree in art and cultural studies and later obtained a master’s degree in Art Museum and Gallery studies from the University of Leicester. 

As part of her degree programme Princess Mako has also completed a placement at Coventry Museums and collections-based research at New Walk Museum in Leicester.

Speaking at a press opportunity marking the end of her year of taught Master’s degree, Princess Mako said in Japanese that her time at the University of Leicester had been ‘a wonderful experience’.

Head of the School of Museum Studies Dr Suzanne Macleod said at the time: ‘We have a strong connection to the cultural profession in Japan with many students graduating from our School to take up posts in museums and galleries there and so it felt very natural that Mako should come and follow her interests with us. 

‘She has been a pleasure to teach, has worked incredibly hard and should be very proud of her achievements.’ 

Mako and Komuro became engaged in secret before announcing the news in September 2017. Shortly afterwards it was announced the pair would wed in November 2018.

Trouble erupted a few months after he and Mako announced their engagement in 2017, when tabloids reported a financial dispute between Komuro’s mother and her former fiance, with the man claiming mother and son had failed to repay a debt of about $35,000. 

Some reports say the fiance paid for part of Komuro’s education. 

Komuro later said the money had been a gift, not a loan. But in 2021, he submitted a 24-page explanation and later reportedly said he would pay a settlement.

In September 2018, he left for studies at New York’s Fordham University and didn’t return until September this year, after having graduated from law school and started working at a New York law firm. He took the bar exam in July, with results due in December. 

Meanwhile, Mako had started to take on a more high-profile role within the royal family. In 2019 she donned a traditional Jūnihitoe as she took part in a procession through Tokyo’s Imperial Palace to mark her uncle’s formal ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

She also took on official engagements that would have previously fallen to her parents, including making an official visit to South America in July that year. 

However now she will be leaving it all behind as she joins Komuro to build a new life together in New York. They will do so without royal money. 

Mako has also declined the 140 million yen ($1.23 million) dowry to which she was entitled for leaving the imperial family, palace officials said. 

She is the first imperial family member since World War II to not receive the payment while marrying a commoner and chose to do so because of the criticism over her marrying a man some consider unfit for the princess. 

Reading out a prepared statement today, Mako defended her decision to marry while describing Kei as ‘irreplaceable’ and adding that ‘our marriage is a necessary step for us to be able to protect our hearts.’

She also criticised news reports written during their engagement which she accused of spreading false information and ‘one-sided rumours’, which she said had left her ‘feeling sadness and pain.’ 

The royal household previously revealed she is suffering PTSD. 

Kei also apologised but said that he loved Mako and would support her throughout their life together.

‘I love Mako. We only get one life, and I want us to spend it with the one we love,’ he said. ‘I feel very sad that Mako has been in a bad condition, mentally and physically, because of the false accusations.The couple did not answer questions to make the experience easier for Mako, but did issue a page of written responses to five pre-selected questions. One asked about Mako’s condition, to which she responded: ‘Not good’.