Volume 31, Number 17 · November 8, 1984
The Ideal Husband
By David Cannadine
The Cult of the Prince Consort
by Elisabeth Darby, by Nicola Smith
Yale University Press, 120 pp., $20.00
Prince Albert: His Life and Work
by Hermione Hobhouse
Hamish Hamilton (distributed in the US by David and Charles), 182 pp., $24.00
Prince Albert: A Biography
by Robert Rhodes James
Knopf, 312 pp., $17.95
Western monarchy is not merely, as Max Weber observed, institutionalized charisma: it is institutionalized male chauvinism as well. Whether priest or magician, philosopher or warrior, sovereigns are expected to be men, and in most cases they are. The Kingdom of Heaven is ruled by a God not a Goddess, and the Kingdom of the Jungle by a lion not a lioness (or by Tarzan not by Jane). In some countries, the Salic law made it impossible for women to accede to the throne, and even where it did not, women have always been severely disadvantaged in the succession stakes. If a king's first child is a son, he is ipso facto heir apparent, and will accede automatically; but if the child is a daughter, she is merely heir presumptive, and will only accede if no son is subsequently born. A king is by definition king regnant, and his consort is therefore queen; but the husband of a queen regnant is not therefore king. And so, with inexorable if superficially paradoxical logic, it is always better to be the woman playing the role of the man (with correspondingly increased scope as queen regnant) than to be the man playing the role of the woman (with much diminished opportunities as prince consort). Kings usually reign, and queens occasionally rule: but gender always governs.
Review, 3684 words
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