Marriage
Prince Akishino first proposed marriage to Kiko Kawashima on 26 June 1986 while they were both undergraduates at Gakushuin. Three years later, Imperial Household Council announced the engagement on 12 September 1989 and the engagement ceremony was held on 12 January 1990. The wedding took place at an exclusive shrine at the Tokyo Imperial Palace on 29 June 1990. The Imperial Household Economy Council had previously 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 The Princess Akishino, known informally as Princess Kiko.
The engagement and marriage of Prince Akishino to the former Kiko Kawashima 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. Additionally, the princess was the first woman from a middle-class background to marry into the imperial family. (Although Empress Michiko was born a commoner, she was from a very wealthy family; her father was the president of a large flour-milling company.) Unusual for the time, their engagement and marriage were romantically based, rather than arranged.
Princess Akishino completed her post-graduate studies in psychology in between her official duties and received her master's degree in psychology in 1995. She is known for her continuing interest in deaf culture and the Deaf in Japan. She learned Japanese sign language and she is a skilled sign language interpreter. She attends the "Sign Language Speech Contest for High School Students" held every August, and "Praising Mothers Raising Children with Hearing Impairments" every December. In October 2008, she participated in the "38th National Deaf Women's Conference." She also signs in informal Deaf gatherings.
The princess suffers from carpal tunnel syndrome osteoporosis aggravated by child-nursing, a symptom common among middle-aged women, her doctor said on 14 December 2007.
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Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“With my desire to write he seemed in full sympathy, and in urging our early marriage he argued that my first necessity was leisure in which to develop and to master my craft. It appeared to me that with such a man as teacher and guide I could not fail, and it was in a queer mixture of young love and vaulting ambition that I became a wife.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)