Superior Man's Club Okay With Me

I learned some interesting things from talking with Hiro tonight about the Imperial Family line. As it turns out, the family line was never meant to be a maternal line at all. In fact, if you go back to each time when there was a woman empress, regardless of whether she had children or not, the line was cut after she died. Officials, or some such people, would follow the family line back until they could find a living male heir, be it second-cousin or what have you, and that male would succeed the throne. Hiro reminded me that the 'original god' of Japan was a woman(, perhaps the 'goddess of creation?' I really don't know); yet the imperial line was only ever meant for males. An analogy that made sense to me would be that the line is like a lion's club for men, or a 'Way of the Superior Man's club,' if you will. It wasn't intended for women in the first place, and that, I can understand. And now that I understand, it's okay with me.

In that light, I see no problem with holding to the desire to keep the 'club' alive, and hoping that the princess would have a male child. I now believe there is a lot of misunderstanding about the situation, and I'm glad that it was cleared up for me, so that I could find peace with a very sensitive topic.

When I asked Hiro where we could find something similar which showed an appreciation of the women's historical lines, he reminded me again that women in history have mostly been thought of as inferior to men in some way, so those lines have probably not been thought to be important to keep. Only recently, have people been opening to the possibility that women are not inferior, but maybe just different.

So, he suggested I start a maternal line--I don't know if I'm the one to do it, but I do think there's no reason why a woman/women shouldn't start. Have they already started? Is there a maternal family line, with records kept from long ago, which is still alive today? I wonder, and I do remember hearing about lines of priestesses, but a strictly maternal blood line?? Hmm...

All in all, I'm glad women have opportunities to be appreciated for what they are more and more these days. And through all of it, I can say I'm glad I was born female. And as I learn to love being a woman more and more, I hope I am also becoming a part of what's to be appreciated about them.