Kiko, Crown Princess of Japan: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 08:36, 23 July 2005
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Her Imperial Highness Princess Akishino (jp: 秋篠宮紀子親王妃 akishino no miya kiko shinnōhi), née Kawashima Kiko (川島紀子), (born 11 September 1966), is the wife of Prince Akishino (Fumihito), the second son of the Emperor Akihito and the Empress Michiko, and a member of the Japanese imperial family through marriage. The daughter of a university professor, she became the second commoner to marry into the imperial family; her mother-in-law, the Empress, was the first in 1959.
Early life
Kawashima Kiko was born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan on 11 September 1966. She is the only daughter and elder child of Kawashima Tatsuhiko, professor of economics at Gakushuin University, and his wife, Kazuko. She spent her preschool days in the United States when her father taught at the University of Pennsylvania and attended primary school in Vienna, Austria, when her father taught there. The future princess became fluent in English and German. She received her undergraduate degree from the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Letters of Gakushuin University in 1989. She subsequently began graduate study in psychology at Gakushuin and completed the first part of the doctorate in 1995.
Marriage
Prince Fumihito first proposed marriage to Kawashima Kiko on 26 June 1986, while they were both undergraduates at Gakushuin. The couple, however, did not announce their intent to marry for three years. The engagement received the formal sanction of the ten-member Imperial Household Council on 12 September 1989. The wedding took place at the Imperial Palace on 29 June 1990. The Imperial Household Economy Council had previous granted the prince permission to establish a new branch of the imperial family and the Emperor granted him the title Akishino no miya (Prince Akishino) on his wedding day. Upon marriage, his bride became Her Imperial Highness Princess Akishino, known informally as Princess Kiko.
The engagement and marriage of Prince Akishino to the former Kawashima Kiko broke precedent in several respects. First, at the time, the groom was still a graduate student at Gakushuin and married before his older brother, Crown Prince Naruhito. Second, the princess was the first women from a middle-class background to marry into the imperial family. Empress Michiko, although a commoner, was from a very wealthy family; her father was the president of a large flour-milling company. Finally, the engagement and marriage was widely reported to be a love match. The empress, though of common blood, was one of the candidates recommended to the imperial family by several prestigious women's universities.
Children
Since 1997, Prince and Princess Akishino and their children have maintained a principal residence on the grounds of the Akasaka Estate in Motoakasaka, Minato ward in Tokyo. The couple have two daughters:
- Her Imperial Highness Princess Mako (眞子内親王殿下) (born 23 October 1991)
- Her Imperial Highness Princess Kako (佳子内親王殿下) (born 29 December 1994)