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Police Guard. Prim, convent-bred Michiko Shoda had no part in any such shenanigans. But, just as in the eyes of many Japanese women she is the most successful symbol of their emancipation, so has she to some extent become a symbol of the hated modern world to Japanese traditionalists—mostly men over 30. Some of the kazoku (noble) families make no secret of their chagrin that their own blue-blooded daughters were passed over as a bride for the crown prince. A court lady angrily describes Michiko Shoda as "that little upstart." Recently, as a guest at an exclusive dinner party, Michiko's millionaire industrialist father sat in embarrassed silence while kazoku guests addressed each other loudly over his head, complaining at the way things were going, and blaming all their troubles on the nouveaux riches and the "postwar millionaires." Ultranationalists threatened to "wipe out" the entire Shoda family. The police, aware of how often in Japan assassination has been a means of political or emotional protest, keep the Shoda house under constant guard.
The diehard traditionalists strongly believe that every marriage should be arranged. To them, a wedding is not a loving union between individuals but a solemn bond between families. To pacify this powerful group, the Director of the Imperial Household Board appeared before the Japanese Diet and solemnly insisted that the royal marriage was prearranged and "not a tennis-court romance."
Even those imperial officials most anxious to break with the rigid past recognize the danger of fatally damaging the institution of royalty itself. Court ladies declare that Michiko "will always be regarded as 'the girl from outside.' " Old women giggle that the Shodas come from the Kanto Plain, the proverbial home of "high winds and nagging wives." An elderly businessman tells his friends: "Enjoy the royal wedding; it is the last one you will see in Japan."
The Malady of Silliness. What is vanishing in Japan is the good old days when women lived by the precepts of the 17th century Onna-Daigaku (Great Learning for Women). A sample: "The five worst maladies that afflict the female mind are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy and silliness. The worst of them all, the parent of the other four, is silliness." The duty of a wife was simply to produce children—sons, not daughters. For 250 years under the Tokugawa Shoguns, Japan's population was kept stable largely by female infanticide.* Of the girls permitted to live, those who became prostitutes in order to support their parents were praised for filial piety. Every woman trod the Path of the Three Obediences: to her father before marriage, to her husband when she was wed, to her son if she became a widow. "The Japanese wife needs no religion," ran the saying. "Her husband is her sole heaven."