I was reading about the Swedish royal family yesterday and couldn't find an answer to this question about which I got curious. If I understand correctly, only the King's sister who married a prince remains part of the royal house, whilst the other sisters do not. Yet the Crown Princess married a man who was not of royal or noble descent, and retains her succession rights. The UK royal family have also had marriages with non-royals in the last decades. When and why did this become permitted and/or acceptable? Did it change amongst all monarchies in Europe at similar times, or did some royal houses judge others for relaxing the rule?
Or in the case of Sweden, have there always been different rules for those in direct succession lines compared to extended family members? Thanks for your answers and please excuse me if I have gotten confused here!
The Swedish Act of Succession was updated in 1937 to allow marriage between royalty and commoners, which made a lot of sense for the era. World War I made alliances between warring countries extremely awkward, and World War II was obviously just about to begin and possibly create the same problems.
And after World War I, several European monarchies fell out of power. Royalty in Russia, Austria, [edit], and Germany no longer legally or practically held any title, rank, or power. Even after all this, a lot of ex-princes and princesses kept marrying each other. The pretenders to the Russian throne all argue about who has the best claim nowadays based on how “royal” their marriage partners are, even though in a realistic sense, none of these people are royal at all.
As someone else already detailed, Britain has kept out of all this nonsense by not differentiating between dynastic and morganatic marriages. King Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of a knight; Henry VIII married four commoners; James II married a commoner, though she died before she would have become Queen.
When Albert, Duke of York, married commoner Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in the 1920s, there was a real discussion of whether she would get the title “Her Royal Highness”, since a Prince marrying a commoner hadn’t happened since the 1600s. It was decided she would, of course, and their marriage was considered just as valid and royal as the marriage of the Duke of Kent to Princess Marina of Greece (which pissed Marina off—imagine ranking equal to or below the daughter of a minor aristocrat!).
Now reviewing the King of Sweden’s sisters…I’m not entirely sure why his sisters lost their status as Royal Highnesses, but my best guess is going to be the sexism of the era. “Princess Margaretha, Mrs. Ambler” sounds very “Mr. and Mrs. John Smith” to me: something that seemed totally normal in the 1960s, but which seems entirely out-of-date in a modern world. But these sisters are still considered Princesses, according to the Succession Act.
And again, compare it with Britain: Queen Victoria’s daughter Louise married a commoner, the Marquess of Lorne, in 1871 and kept her title “Her Royal Highness” her whole life. It just depended on the law and the norms of the country.