Since the establishment of the English/British monarchy sons have had precedence over daughters in ascending to throne. This of course hasn’t stopped women from becoming the sovereign, it’s just made less likely. That is changing now. At a recent meeting in Australia of the heads of government of the 16 Commonwealth nations for whom Queen Elisabeth is also the head of state sons and daughters now have equal standing. The decision must be ratified by each of the 16 governments before it takes effect, but if William and Catherine’s first born is a girl then she would be in line to be the queen.
There has also been a rule in place since 1701 that prohibits any monarch or future monarch cannot marry a Catholic, which will be abolished with the same constitutional changes. What’s ironic here is how specific the rule is, it was enacted to help ensure that all future monarchs would be members of the Church of England by ensuring they wouldn’t have a Catholic parent to try to sway them at a time when Catholic or Anglican were the only options. This means that Prince William would have been free to marry a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Baptist, or atheist, just not a Catholic.
Bringing more equality and freedom to a hereditary institution is a good thing, unfortunately one important freedom has been left out. Since the monarch is the head of the Church of England, the monarch and any future monarchs must be a member of that church. This means that while a heir to the throne could marry an atheist or soon would be free to marry a Catholic, the heir couldn’t be an atheist or a Catholic.
There was a time when kings and queens held great power and could literally get away with murder, they were the free ones and the commoners where little more than their slaves. Today it is the royalty who are the slaves of society while the commoners are free. Most calls to abolish monarchies are based on the facts that they are irrelevant, inherently incompatible with a democratic society, or wasteful. I, on the other hand, think they should be abolished because all people, regardless of the family into which they are born deserve the full rights of citizenship and should be free to choose their own career, residence, country, and religion (or lack thereof). It’s time to free the royalty.
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You know, that's a good point. I've always ragged on the royalty for being born into a position of privilege, but you've reminded me of that expression "A gilded cage". The royal family have no choice in being Christian and British – they can't really move, change nationalities (without giving everything up and putting themselves at severe risk) and they can't say what they think….. ever.
Sure, the royals might have mansions and jewels… but they can't ever express themselves. They're not allowed to raise their children in a manner of their pleasing. They're also almost never alone either, nor do they have the option of EVER travelling alone. Someone from one of the MI organizations must follow them EVERYWHERE. No privacy. At all.
And now that they have no real power (well, no real power that they can use), is it worth it? Sure, if they never want to do anything but live a sloth like life of nothing but extravagance, then sure… but they're not free to dream are they?
Then again… Prince Harry acts like a little snot and gets away with it. Well, got away with it. He can't act like that anymore.