A Japanese princess who gave up her royal status to marry her commoner college sweetheart left for New York on Sunday, as the couple pursued happiness as newlyweds and left behind a nation that has criticized their romance.
The departure of Mako Komuro, the former Princess Mako, and Kei Komuro, both 30, was carried live by major Japanese broadcasters, showing them boarding a plane amid a flurry of camera flashes at Haneda Airport in Tokyo.
Kei Komuro, a graduate of Fordham University law school, has a job at a New York law firm. He has yet to pass his bar exam, another piece of news that local media have used to attack him, although it is common to pass after multiple attempts.
“I love Mako,” he told reporters last month after registering their marriage in Tokyo. They did so without a wedding banquet or any of the other usual celebratory rituals.
“I want to live the only life I have with the person I love,” he said.
Although Japan appears modern in many ways, values about family relations and the status of women often are seen as somewhat antiquated, rooted in feudal practices.
Such views were accentuated in the public’s reaction to the marriage. Some Japanese feel they have a say in such matters because taxpayer money supports the imperial family system.
Other princesses have married commoners and left the palace. But Mako is the first to have drawn such a public outcry, including a frenzied reaction on social media and in local tabloids.
Speculation ranged from whether the couple could afford to live in Manhattan to how much money Kei Komuro would earn and if the former princess would end up financially supporting her husband.
