{"id":1251,"date":"2011-04-30T23:01:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T23:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2014-07-30T13:00:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T13:00:20","slug":"japanese-royal-couples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/japanese-royal-couples\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Royal Couples"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the wedding of William and Kate in England, interest in the royals is at an all time high. Did you know that the Japanese also have a royal family? If you\u2019d like to know more about Japanese royal weddings, there\u2019s an article about it here: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/royal-wedding-attire<\/p>\n

Since the royal wedding in England, I think the question on people\u2019s minds is on whether William and Kate will live happily ever after. As you know, Prince Charles and Diana\u2019s fairy tale wedding did not end up as a fairy tale marriage. Like royals couples everywhere, Japanese royal couples have had their ups and downs.<\/p>\n

Take for example Emperor Meiji (\u660e\u6cbb\u5929\u7687<\/strong>) and his wife, Empress Sh\u014dken (\u662d\u61b2\u7687\u540e<\/strong>). Empress Sh\u014dken was exceptionally intelligent and very active in charity work. She was considered a good Empress, but she failed to provide any children. As a result, the Emperor had fifteen children with five different women. Empress Sh\u014dken did not have a perfect marriage, but she did the best she could and put up a good front for her people.<\/p>\n

Emperor Meiji and Empress Sh\u014dken\u2019s marriage was an arranged marriage, but Emperor Akihito (\u660e\u4ec1\u5929\u7687<\/strong>) and his wife Empress Michiko (\u7687\u540e\u7f8e\u667a\u5b50<\/strong>) was more or less a love match. Empress Michiko was from a commoner background; which made the couple\u2019s first years difficult because the Emperor\u2019s mother disapproved of having a commoner as a daughter-in-law. However, over the years it seems that the couple have been inseparable and still going strong.<\/p>\n

While Emperor Akihito married a commoner, Emperor Hirohito (\u88d5\u4ec1\u5929\u7687<\/strong>) literally married within the family by marrying his distant cousin. I guess you could say it was love at first sight for Emperor Hirohito, because he chose his future bride by watching her through a peephole during a tea ceremony. He also broke with tradition by deciding not to have concubines. It seems that the couple had a relatively happy marriage that produced seven children.<\/p>\n

Emperor Taish\u014d (\u5927\u6b63\u5929\u7687<\/strong>) and his wife Empress Teimei (\u8c9e\u660e\u7687\u540e<\/strong>) was an exemplary royal couple. The both of them worked well as a team. When the Emperor became ill, the Empress handled some of the Emperor\u2019s duties behind the scenes. The Emperor did not take any concubines, which says a lot about Emperor Taish\u014d\u2019s regard for his wife. Past emperors have had concubines even when they already had sons by their official wife, so it must have been a conscious decision of Emperor Taish\u014d not to have concubines.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting about Emperor K\u014dkaku (\u5149\u683c\u5929\u7687<\/strong>) and his wife Empress Yoshiko (\u6b23\u5b50\u7687\u540e<\/strong>) was that the both of them were semi related to each other before they got married to each other. Emperor K\u014dkaku was Empress Yoshiko\u2019s adopted stepbrother. When the two got married they became husband and wife; which must have been awkward to say the least. She gave birth to two sons, but both died in infancy. Emperor K\u014dkaku took to having concubines, so there was some difficulties and strife in this marriage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

With the wedding of William and Kate in England, interest in the royals is at an all time high. Did you know that the Japanese also have a royal family? If you\u2019d like to know more about Japanese royal weddings, there\u2019s an article about it here: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/royal-wedding-attire Since the royal wedding in England, I think…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":1271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2765],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-japanese-royalty"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3925,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/3925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}