Princess Yuriko, the eldest member of the Japanese Imperial Family, dies at the age of 101
Princess Yuriko of Japan, wife of Emperor Hirohito’s brother and the eldest member of Japan’s imperial family, died Friday in Tokyo. She was 101.
Her death, in a hospital, was announced by the Imperial Household Agency. The announcement did not indicate a cause of death, but Japanese news media said she died of pneumonia.
Born into an aristocratic family on June 4, 1923, Yuriko was 18 when she married Prince Mikasa, younger brother of Hirohito and great-uncle of the current Emperor, Naruhito. The wedding took place on October 22, 1941, weeks before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
She said she lived in a shelter with her husband and their daughter after their house burned down when the United States firebombed Tokyo in 1945, in the final months of the war.
She raised five children and supported Prince Mikasa’s research into the history of the ancient Near East, while also fulfilling her official duties and participating in philanthropic activities, including promoting maternal and child health. She survived her husband, who died in 2016, and their three sons.
Her death reduces Japan’s rapidly dwindling Imperial Family to sixteen people, including four men. The country is faced with the question of how to maintain the royal family, with conservatives in the ruling party pushing for the succession to be exclusively male.
The 1947 Imperial House Law, which largely maintains pre-war conservative values, allows only men to ascend the throne and removes royal status from female members of the royal family who marry commoners.
The youngest male member of the imperial family, Prince Hisahito – Emperor Naruhito’s cousin – is currently the last heir to the throne, which poses a major problem for a system that does not allow empresses. The government is debating how to keep the succession stable without relying on women.
Princess Yuriko had led a healthy life before suffering a stroke and pneumonia in March. She exercised in the morning while watching a daily fitness program on television, the Imperial Household Agency said, and continued to read multiple newspapers and magazines and watch news and baseball on television.
