Lines of Love

Question: Given that sources identify both Tsuki-yomi and Takamimusubi as Amaterasu's consort, how reasonable an explanation is "she was married to both of them, but at separate times?" Or is there some factor that makes that too easy an answer for mythology? (Every time I try to slog through the Nihon Shoki, I pass out and wake up with my cat chewing on my hair...)

But wait, it gets better! Some scholars also believe that Amaterasu's consort may have originally been her other brother, Susanoo, in pre-Kojiki myth, but that this connection fell out of favor and was later replaced by her more famous consort relations. This is mostly based on their joint relation to the later important imperial bloodlines of Japan and their close relationship before his banishment, but it's also more than a little conjecture, so feel free to ignore it if it's giving you even more of a headache than usual.

If you want to go strictly by the texts, Tsukuyomi is the only one officially named as Amaterasu's consort; no one ever outright says she has a formal relationship with Takamimusubi. Takakmimusubi is definitely around, though, and constantly involved with Amaterasu; he calls councils for her, acts as her advisor during them, jointly bestows gifts upon her grandson Ninigi when he goes forth into the World, negotiates with Okuninushi for the disposition of the earth at her side, and generally seems attached to her hip whenever matters of state are at hand. Of course, he could just be a really awesome vizier/seneschal who knocks it out of the park on advising her, but there are moments when he seems almost on an equal level of power with her, or at least able to speak on her behalf. There are also several textual clues that suggest their closeness, including the fact that Amaterasu's son and Takamimusubi's daughter marry in order to give birth to Ninigi; neither's extra parent is ever mentioned, and the Kojiki already has an established pattern of sibling marriage among gods that could be continued here. The emperors of Japan are therefore also descended from both Amaterasu and Takamimusubi, although it's more often the sun goddess who is remembered as their imperial patron in modern times.

Much of the theory of the two being consorts comes from ancient cultural evidence, which is by necessity not very exact because a lot of it involves anthropologists drawing conclusions from scarce evidence or trying to reconstruct ancient thought patterns. Amaterasu's position as the ruler of the cosmos in an otherwise strongly male-dominated pantheon and culture has been debated for centuries; nobody denies that she's in charge, but there's a healthy debate over how that happened, what it means and why her image as a female who is the greatest among powers doesn't translate to a more even-handed treatment of women in the rest of her culture's myths. One of the leading theories is that Amaterasu is a holdover from very ancient religion, before Shinto was codified, written down and officially instated as the country's dominant religion; in such ancient times, communities were co-ruled by a priestess who wielded all the religious power and a politician-consort who wielded all the temporal power. The priestess was the major figurehead, spokesperson and charismatic power, making proclamations backed up by the clout of the gods, while the politician was in charge of advising her on decisions and supporting her to present a unified front to any malcontents. It's not hard to see why some scholars of Japanese history think this is where Amaterasu's power over the pantheon comes from: she may be a vestige of a time when that priestess-politician dual rulership was the norm, and therefore she is the driving power of the pantheon while her politician spouse, Takamimusubi, supports and enhances her.

If you want to consider her to have been married to both of them - and I don't see why you wouldn't, since despite the lack of direct evidence of Takamimusubi we think it's a neat theory and a reasonable mythological choice - you could certainly claim that she married the one after divorcing the other. Timelines in the Nihon Shoki are hard to really pin down, but her spectacular falling-out with Tsukuyomi over the death of Uke Mochi might have marked the end of her first marriage (also to a male consort who perhaps acted in that political capacity for her), whereupon she instead took on Takamimusubi as her consort instead. If you want to throw Susanoo in there, too, you could say that she went from Tsukuyomi, who she banished for angering her, to Susanoo, who she banished for angering her, to Takamimusubi, who presumably tries pretty hard not to anger her if he can help it.

It's not a strong theory (i.e., there's really not much evidence aside from theoretical comparisons to other nearby peoples in Asia, most notably the Ainu), but a few scholars also believe that the ancient matriarchal Japanese culture might have allowed polyandry, the marriage of more than one man to the same woman, in the same way that much later Japanese culture allowed men to have multiple wives. If you like that theory, Amaterasu could have more than one consort at a time without breaking a sweat, just as later Japanese emperors kept multiple concubines.