TOKYO - Japan's Cabinet approved Tuesday a bill to revise a law to ensure a sustainable imperial family system amid concerns over the shrinkage of the family's size, while sticking to the male and paternal-line emperor system despite a decreasing number of successors.
The ruling bloc of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner, the Japan Innovation Party, aims to enact the bill to revise the 1947 Imperial House Law by July 17 when the current parliamentary session ends.
The bill's two pillars are to permit the imperial family to adopt males aged 15 or older and descended through the male line from emperors in 11 former branch families, and to allow female members to retain their imperial status even after marrying commoners.
The legislation would make an "exception" for such adopted males to a current law article that bans adoption. While forbidding adopted members themselves from becoming emperor, it would allow their male descendants to be eligible to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne.
The proposal, a reflection of the LDP's conservative stance, may face a backlash from opposition forces in upcoming Diet deliberations, since changing the imperial succession system had barely been discussed at a cross-party meeting on revising the law.
At the meeting, the speakers and vice speakers of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors heard views from all 13 parties and groups of both chambers before compiling their "consensus," which formed the basis of the drafted bill.
The bill fell short of mentioning whether to allow females or those with matrilineal lineage to an emperor to ascend the throne, an idea that has garnered much public support.
Under the current law, only males who are descended from an emperor on their father's side can ascend the throne, while female members lose their imperial status upon marriage. Both the number of eligible successors and imperial family members has been declining.
There are only three heirs to Emperor Naruhito, 66 -- his younger brother Crown Prince Fumihito, 60, his nephew Prince Hisahito, 19, and his uncle Prince Hitachi, 90.
The 11 branch families share with the imperial family a common ancestor who lived around 600 years ago.
In 1947, 51 members of the 11 branches were divested of their royal status, while the three families of the brothers of Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, retained their status under the U.S.-led occupation after World War II.
The two proposed revisions were originally put forward in 2021 by a government panel. But it did not address whether women or those descended from an emperor through the female line could ascend the throne, saying it was premature to explore the issue.
Meanwhile, according to a Kyodo News poll conducted in May, 83.0 percent of respondents support the idea of a female emperor.
