AS former Japanese diplomat Masako Owada married Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan in Tokyo yesterday, in arcane ceremonies to which neither the public nor the TV cameras were invited, a thoroughly modern woman was grafted on to a medieval institution.
Despite millions of words written and spoken in the past few months about how Ms Owada will change the Japanese monarchy, the medieval institution is almost certain to emerge largely unscathed and unchanged as a result of her presence in the royal family.
It is highly unlikely that Ms Owada has any illusions on this score. Thousands of similar words were also written in 1959 when the first commoner to enter the Japanese imperial family in the modern era, Michiko Shoda (now the Empress Michiko) married thethen-Crown Prince, now Emperor Akihito.
The only change that Michiko was able to bring about was that she assumed a greater degree of responsibility for bringing up her children than previous imperial parents had done. But life within the imperial family was never easy for her.
When some of her ways - notably an interest in Christianity - infuriated the traditional and long-reigning Emperor Hirohito, she was reprimanded with such intensity that she had a severe nervous breakdown, and the strain she was under clearly showed on her face for years afterwards.
Emperor Akihito may be a more understanding father-in-law for the new Crown Princess, but Akihito has brought about few, if any, changes of substance in the tradition-bound and secretive Japanese monarchy.