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Once there was a Japanese woman who became a princess.

She was attractive, charming and a Harvard University graduate. She dreamed of serving her country and joined the diplomatic corps.

Then, in 1993, she married Crown Prince Naruhito, creating speculation about what this brilliant commoner might achieve in a tradition-bound country that seemed in strong need of a modern female role model.

But that was a long time ago.

Whatever hopes existed that Crown Princess Masako could change the role of women in Japan is gone. Today the 40-year-old princess is a shell of her former self.

She hides from public view and the media speculate about her emotional state. She suffers from shingles--often a stress-related ailment--and she was the subject of a heartfelt public comment from her husband that sounded like a helpless prince desperately trying to save his princess.

Before setting off, alone, on a trip to Europe in May, the prince complained bitterly at a news conference that the princess "worked hard to adapt to the environment of the Imperial Household for the past 10 years, but from what I can see, I think she has completely exhausted herself in trying to do so."

Edging as close as he might dare to telling the full story in a rigidly structured country where spilling emotions in public is frowned upon--and would be considered almost unspeakably undignified for a prince--he suggested that Princess Masako crumbled under the pressure of an imperial system that cared only for tradition, not for the princess.

The most specific issue that the prince addressed was the unbearable pressure felt by Masako-sama, as she is widely known, to fulfill the one responsibility she cannot carry out on command: to produce a male heir.

Everyone in Japan understands that the future of the imperial family as it now exists may depend on Princess Masako. The royal couple has a 2-year-old daughter, born a year after the princess suffered a miscarriage. The crown prince's younger brother and his wife have two girls, which means the line of succession would end with the two men.

There is no statute recognizing female succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne, though Japan has had several female emperors in its long history and some people have begun to talk of the unlikely possibility that the rules could be changed.

Out of concern, the Imperial Household Agency apparently decided years ago that all other activities related to Princess Masako must be secondary to the issue of having a son.

This has left the once-worldly princess--who speaks perfect English, participated in trade negotiations in her Foreign Ministry career and is the daughter of a judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague --more or less a prisoner to her womb.

For many women in Japan, particularly those who might have hitched their ambitions to those of the princess, the news that Princess Masako is struggling has hit home. It is a very clear reminder of how little has changed in a male-dominated society that feels most comfortable assigning women the primary roles of mothers and wives.

(Agencies)