Sharjah24 – AFP: Japan's Princess Mako finally marries Kei Komuro on Tuesday, but it won't be a lavish affair, with the couple forgoing traditional rites after years of controversy.
Emperor Naruhito's niece Mako, who turned 30 over the weekend, will lose her royal title when she and Komuro register their marriage.
This is par for the course for female members of the lineage, who cannot ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne and must leave the imperial family when they marry a commoner.
But, for the first time in Japan's post-war history, Mako has turned down a large payment offered to royal women on their departure, and the nuptials will be officiated on paper with no elaborate ceremony.
Mako and 30-year-old Komuro, who works for a US law firm, announced their engagement in 2017 -- all bashful smiles as he called her "the moon" quietly watching over him and she compared his smile to the sun.
Japan's royals are held to exacting standards, and the Imperial Household Agency recently said Mako had developed complex post-traumatic stress disorder because of the media attention.
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