The correct title of Mette-Marit is Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway. This was decided by the King, and sent out in a press release on the day of the wedding.
Norway does not operate with the wives taking their husband's full name as theirs - ie. Queen Sonja was always Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Sonja before her husband's ascension and not Crown Princess Harald.
I will respectfully dissent and fully substantiate my dissension.
What you are talking about is the
style accorded to Mette-Marit, not her
title that I was referring to.
There is a distinction between
style (form of referring to royals) and
legal title, which carries constitutional or statutory backing. And here is an excellent example of the difference between the two.
In Great Britain, Prince Edward decided that his first child be styled
The Lady Louise Wndsor. However, her legal (statutory) title is
HRH The Princess Louise of Wessex. So, the
style and
legal title of a royal personage are distinct (issues) and may differ (in content).
It should be noted that when the law permits, a monarch may, through
letters patent, grant legal rank and title, following agreement with the government. This is the case in Great Britain, where King George VI, for example, in 1947, elevated Philip Mountbatten to
His Royal Higness Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and in 1957, The Queen, elevated him further to
His Royal Higness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She even added the capitalised definite article "The", a usage normally restricted to children of the Monarch. All these are not just styles, they are fully legal titles.
Now, let return to Norway.
The latest Constitution of Norway does not provide for titles other than those of:
1. The monarch
2. The Heir to the Throne, who from 1990 onward will be determined by absolute primogeniture, and
3. Lineal (only) Princes or princesses, that is, of the blood royal, who are in the line of succession.
There is no mention whatsoever about royal consorts (male or female).
Moreover, Article 23 dictates:
"
The King may bestow orders upon whomever he pleases as a reward for distinguished services, and such orders must be publicly announced,
but no rank or title other than that attached to any office...............
No personal, or mixed, hereditary privileges may henceforth be granted to anyone"
and Article 36 dictates:
"
The King shall make provisions concerning titles for those who are entitled to succeed to the Crown."
These articles make it crystal-clear that the King may bestow rank or title
only upon those entitled to succeed to the Throne. Thus, he may bestow upon Prince Haakon the title of, say,
Duke of Nidaros, or upon his grand daughter the title of, say,
Duchess of Nordland, but that is it. However, King Harald is not prohibited from conferring style to consorts of royal personages as long as styles are not titles or rank and, therefore, statutorily meaningless. Therefore, what you quote is Mette-Marit's style, not rank or title.
My earlier indication that her title is
Crown Princess Haakon was based on the following rationale:
Whenever there is no provision in a constitution for titles or rank for consorts of dynasts, convention has it that, by courtesy, these consorts are invested with titular ceremonial privileges deriving strictly from the statutory position of their spouse. A good precedent is that of Greece, which, when a Kingdom, had a constitution similar to that of Norway in regard to the royal family. All consorts to princes or crown princes, even when royal in their own right, had no statutory rank or title and, as such, were honorifically refrerred to by their husbands' names.
For example, while the wife of Crown Prince (Diadoch) Paul, Frederika of Hanover was referred to as
HRH Princess Diadoch, prince Philip's mother, Alice of Battenberg, as
HRH Princess Andrew of Greece, and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna as
HRH Princess Nicholas of Greece and, even though royal
suo jure, these personages had no statutory rank or title whatsoever.
Therefore, while Mette-Marit carries the style the King chose for her, that is,
HRH Crown Princess Mette-Marit, technically she is
HRH Crown Princess Haakon, because her status stems solely from her husband's dignity.