Why haven’t ladies challenged male primogeniture?
When the Labour MP Keith Vaz introduced a private member’s bill in January ‘to remove any distinction between the sexes in determining the succession to the Crown’, he mentioned that, although not one of those in line for the throne, he did need to declare an interest. Vaz is a fervent monarchist who believes that in order to save itself, the monarchy must change; that it must fall in line with modern Britain’s values on gender or die.
You wonder why, in the face of a thousand and one more pressing social issues, anyone would want to bugger with the Act of Settlement, which has sat like a fat cat in the corner of the British constitution for more than 300 years. Really, does anyone care? Does anyone hear any princesses rattling their silver spoons in protest? Or for that matter, the thousands of daughters of aristocrats who, not even oppressed by some law but by a culture of male primogeniture and property entailment, have watched, for ever, as brothers make off with the booty?
Well, I will be one of the teeny tiny minority who care when that bill is tabled in May.
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