A historic blow

[dr_whom]

So, I read that the Commonwealth Realms are moving toward eliminating male preference in the line of succession to the throne. Good for them! But a New York Times article describes this move as "a historic blow for women’s rights". And I'm like... is it really? I mean, the number of women whose rights will be advanced by this move is really small. It's certainly the right thing to do, and it's symbolic and all, but "historic blow" seems a little strong to me.

They're also eliminating the prohibition on the monarch marrying a Catholic, and the article says "Some experts said the change could lead to constitutional problems if a future monarch married a Catholic and the couple decided to bring up their children as Catholics, something the Vatican encourages." I think I read that last phrase there as having a much more specific meaning than the author presumably intended.

Comments

[ophblekuwufu.livejournal.com]

huh. I tried to read that initially as "a historic blow /to/ women's rights." You can imagine my confusion. There's something weirdly unidiomatic to me about "a historic blow for women's rights", somehow. Not sure why.

[dr_whom]

Interesting: my roommate MW (the one you didn't meet yesterday) said the same thing. Perhaps we're dealing with a case of what midnight_sidhe calls micro-parametric variation here. It sounds fine to me.

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

The same thing happened to me, actually.. Weird!

- HC

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

To me as well.

[tiamat360.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not sure that "historic blow" is quite right, but that's freaking awesome! (it's nicely symbolic for me, as the oldest child with a younger brother...not that we've got any titles to inherit, but still.)

[dr_whom]

It doesn't even apply to all female descendants of Electress Sophia of Hanover, I gather! Just the (currently non-existent) female descendants of Prince Charles. (In other words, it's not retroactively rearranging the succession order of the current line to the throne.)

I assume the only reason it took them this long was because, since the British monarchy actually reigns over 16 countries, all 16 parliaments are going to have to pass a bill to this effect—so the problem was basically getting past that hump of getting everyone to actually do it, not that anyone really had any particular objection.

[dr_whom]

Also, I really like to say "Electress Sophia of Hanover".

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

This is an entirely reasonable position to take.

[pastwatcher]

Yeah, exactly.

dr_whom, I am with you on 'I could hardly care less', but here's a piece by a blogger I often enjoy (links to an opposing view too). She compares it to recognition of female religious leaders, and makes the point that the one relevant thing here is that /not/ doing this "sends a loud and clear message that sex is a relevant category with respect to leadership (or the priesthood), and that women are only good enough for a job if no men are around to fill it."

[dr_whom]

Well, that's a good point.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

It's more a result of the advance of women's rights than advancing them, but it's a nice sign.
The religious business I think has something to do with the king being head of the Anglican church.

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

So this doesn't affect peers, right? Just the monarchs? I wonder if that is forthcoming as well; they'd have to be very very careful how they arranged it because it could be pretty messy.

I don't know, even though the number of women affected is small (and in fact currently entirely hypothetical!), the symbolism behind this still strikes me as very important. Though I agree that the phrasing is problematic.

[dr_whom]

I agree the symbolism is important! It's the fact that there doesn't seem to be that much more to it than symbolism which makes me feel like "historic blow for women's rights" is a bit of an overstatement, I guess.

As far as I can tell this doesn't apply to peers—though on the other hand the UK could just deal with peers unilaterally if they wanted to, right? Part of the reason this was such a big deal is because to change the rules of succession for the throne, 16 countries have to act unanimously.

Also, apparently the Vatican has a backdoor campaign to encourage future monarchs to marry Catholics?

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

I continue to find the 'historic blow for' phrasing infelicitous. Anyway. I kind of do think it's important for more than the symbolism, but I'm not sure I can articulate why. Possibly I just have too much of my brain stuck in previous centuries.

They could, certainly, deal unilaterally with peers. The problem is a different one: there are rather more peers than British monarchs, and the peers are not all the same age and are not likely to all die at the same time. Which means that they'd have to work out exactly when the new laws would kick in, and that could breed all sorts of negative feelings. Imagine if you're the elder daughter and you missed being allowed to inherit by being born two years before the law went into effect, for instance. They'd have to be really really careful.

I would not put anything past the Vatican.

[dr_whom]

I guess the only fair thing they could do with peers in general would be to just make it take effect immediately when the law is passed, but only for potential heirs born afterward and not rearranging any existing succession lines?

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

Right; but what do you do when the potential female heir is already born when the law is passed but doesn't have a younger brother until, say, four years later - does she count? Also, there's a bit of a mess because most peerages, unlike the throne, cannot pass to female heirs, so you have cousins involved who probably don't want to get cut out... I mean, there always is an heir presumptive if not an heir apparent unless the title is in danger of reverting to the Crown.

[dr_whom]

Hmm. I'd say in that case, yes, she's definitely the heir—surely younger brothers born after the law goes into effect shouldn't be able to supersede older sisters in any case. But I don't know what kind of wrangling it would take to deal with the second thing you mention—I didn't know that most peerages can't pass to female heirs in general.

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

In the first case, it's probably easy to legislate but hard to avoid ill feelings. Suppose you have two families of cousins, each with two children, the elder a girl and the younger a boy; suppose that one family's children is about five years older than the others. In the family with the older kids, the boy gets to inherit because he was born before the passing of the law; in the family with the younger kids, the girl gets to inherit because her brother was born later. The daughter in the first family and the son in the second family are both likely to feel slighted.

But yeah, it's the second thing that strikes me as the one most likely to cause trouble. My understanding is that there are very few peeresses in their own right, and that most of them are life peers or Scottish. Now, I guess you could argue that okay, if you're the heir presumptive, there's always a chance that the current peer will suddenly have a legitimate son to become the heir apparent, so it's not that different; except what about cases where you have a family of grown daughters? Should they still be passed over in favour of their second cousins? That doesn't seem right, no?

...I clearly know both far too much and far too little about the British class system.