Lably
Skip to content

Queen consort

Wife of a reigning king

  • 16 min read
  • 3 chapters

Related on Lably

Through King, Title and Queen Victoria

Lab · Class 6–12Buddhist Art at SanchiLab · Class 7–9Ancient Indian EmpiresLab · Class 6–12Data Visualization Lab

In contrast, a queen regnant is a female monarch who rules suo jure (Latin for, "in her own right") and usually becomes queen by inheriting the throne upon the death of the previous monarch.

A queen dowager is a widowed queen consort, and a queen mother is a queen dowager who is the mother of the reigning monarch.

Titles

When a title other than king is held by the sovereign, his wife can be referred to by the feminine equivalent, such as princess consort or empress consort.

In monarchies where polygamy has been practised in the past (such as Morocco and Thailand), or is practised actively (such as the Zulu nation and the various Yoruba polities), the number of the king's wives and their status vary. In Morocco, King Mohammed VI has broken with tradition and given his wife, Lalla Salma, the title of princess; prior to his reign, the Moroccan monarchy had no such title. In Thailand, the king and queen must both be of royal descent; his other consorts need not be royal before marriage to him but are accorded royal titles that confer status. A Zulu chieftain designates one of his wives as "Great Wife", an equivalent to queen consort.

The situation is more complex in Yorubaland. All of a chief's consorts are essentially of equal rank. Although one wife, usually the one married to the chief for the longest time, may be given a chieftaincy of her own to highlight her relatively higher status compared to the other wives, she does not share her husband's ritual power as a chieftain. When a woman is to be vested with an authority similar to that of the chief, she is usually a lady courtier in his service who, although not married to him, is expected to lead his female subjects on his behalf.

In the Ottoman Empire, haseki sultan (Ottoman Turkish: حاصكي سلطان; Ḫāṣekī Sulṭān; Turkish pronunciation: ) was the title held by the chief consort, and sometimes legal wife, of a sultan. The title was created in the 16th century for Hürrem Sultan, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, replacing the previous title of baş hatun ("head hady"). The bearer of the title occupied the second most important position in the Ottoman Empire for a female after valide sultan ("empress mother").

While the wife of a king is usually given the title of queen, there is much less consistency for the husband of a reigning queen. The title of king consort is rare. Examples are Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in Scotland and Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz, in Spain. Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme in Navarre and Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Portugal also gained the title. In Portugal, because of the practice of jure uxoris, both King Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his predecessor, King Pedro of Portugal, were treated as ruling kings in protocol and were thus symbolically co-rulers with their wives, but both really had only the same power of a consort and the queen was the real ruler.

The title of prince consort for the husband of a reigning queen is more common. The monarchies that adopted this title did so because the title of king is usually historically higher than queen, so when the sovereign is female, her husband should never have a higher title than her. An example is Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He married Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom; because she insisted that he be given a title identifying his status, he became Albert, Prince Consort.

Sign in to keep reading

2 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Politics and economics

United States CongressBicameral legislature of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United StatesHighest court of jurisdiction in the U.S.World Bank GroupGroup making loans to developing countriesRoyal NavyNaval warfare force of the United KingdomPresident of the United StatesHead of state and governmentGovernment of IndiaThe Government of India (Devanagari: भारत सरकार; IAST: Bhārata Sarakāra; legally, the Unio