Unequal Marriages

[Furienna]

That's not entirely correct. Carl XI and Gustaf IV Adolf both became kings as minors and thus already were monarchs at their weddings. They both married princesses though.

[Meraude]

Originally Posted by Furienna

That's not entirely correct. Carl XI and Gustaf IV Adolf both became kings as minors and thus already were monarchs at their weddings. They both married princesses though.

My comment was not about kings being monarchs when they got in general, just about the three Swedish kings who married Swedish commoners (Gustav, Erik, Johan). If kings are not seen as being royals because they are monarchs, there haven't been any marriage between a Swedish royal in line for the throne who have married a Swedish commoner and not lost his right to the throne after the accession of Gustav Vasa until Victoria married Daniel. Prince Bertil did marry a commoner, but princess Lilian was British, not Swedish.

[Furienna]

Fair enough.

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by GrandDuchess

Philippe Egalite' is correct, after some PM contact with him a while ago I've answered his questions in a blog post on my blog. You can find the answer here, I'll post it here also so that everyone can see it.

Originally Posted by Philippe Egalite'

First of all, I would like to refer you to blog Sofia's Royal Sweden where the author gives an authoritative answer to this question.


Evidently, until 1937 the Act of Succession stated:

"a Prince or Princess of the Royal House may not marry with less than the Government’s, on the suggestion of the King’s, approval. Should this happen still, he or she have forfeited their hereditary right for themselves, children and descendants. The same goes for if he, with or without such consent, takes a private man's daughter to his bride."

In 1937, the last sentence was changed to "a Swedish private man's daughter". To your question about Lady Louise Mountbatten [initially a princess of Battenberg], it appears that Dein the papers signed between Great Britain and Sweden prior to her marriage on November 3, 1923, it was stated that she was a member of the British Royal Family and this circumvented the obstacle.

Originally Posted by Meraude

According to Nordisk Familjebok from 1924, 839-840 (Nordisk familjebok / Uggleupplagan. 36. Supplement. Globe - Kövess) , under the word Jämbördig (equal) explained the phrase "enskild man" as a man who isn't a member of a reining royal dynasty, or if he is a member isn't in the line of succession for some reason. "Enskild man" doesn't only apply to commoners, it applies to every man who isn't in line in the succession in a reigning royal dynasty. None of the ladies above had a father who was a member of a reigning royal dynasty, and thus they were "enskild mans dotter" and their marriages was unequal.

There is an explanation there why lady Louise Mountbatten was considered equal, there is an exception if the woman herself is in the line of succession in her own right, as Louise was in line for the British throne through her moter, being a great-granddaugher of queen Victoria. I would guess that the same was true in the case of princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, also a great-granddaughter of queen Victoria.

Originally Posted by NGalitzine

As I recall the story George V sent the Swedish Cout a list of those who were members of the British Royal Family and Lady Louise Mountbatten was on the list. She had been on the list as Princess Louise of Battenberg and remained on the list after the 1917 title changes.

Thank you all for the details.

Should the British court not have emphasized her father's and mother's membership of the British Royal Family and her mother's rights to the British throne, instead of the royal family membership and succession rights of Lady Louise herself? Given that the constitutional prohibition applied to a "private man's daughter", not a "private woman".

Originally Posted by Furienna

In the 1920s, when Crown Prince Gustav Adolf (the future King Gustav VI Adolf) wanted to marry Louise Mountbatten, they made some research about her royal lines. Was she a German princess or "only" a Brittish aristocrat? And three things finally made it possible for her to become crown princess and later queen of Sweden.
1: Many of her relatives were royals. Her aunt Alexandra had been empress of Russia, her cousin Ena was queen of Spain, and there was also a king of Bulgaria closely enough in the family tree.
2: The Brittish king was married to Queen Mary, who had been born a princess of Teck, and Teck was no bigger a principality than Battenberg, and what was good enough for the UK would surely be good enough for Sweden.
3: The Brittish royal family somehow actually officially approved of the marriage, which meant that Louise had to be part of that royal family.

Are you thinking of "making it possible" in the court of public opinion or in constitutional law? I don't think #2 would pass muster as a legal argument regarding Swedish law, and given the "daughter" wording it seems like a stretch to cite an aunt or cousin (#1).

Originally Posted by JR76

The amendment of 1937 was one made out of a perceived necessity and was never meant to make it possible for Swedish princes to marry foreign non-royals. Instead it was seen as necessary to avoid the risk of constitutional issues (see the questions about the status of Lady Louise Mountbatten) because after World War I a majority of the families that were seen as appropriate marriage material were now private citizens.

I always wondered what the point of the amendment of 1937 was given that the kings did not grant consent to marriages to foreign "private men's daughters" until 1976. Thank you for clearing that up.

As the amendment was only passed 19 years after the end of World War I, I presume there must have been a more recent event which returned the issue back parliament. Was it the marriage to Sibylla von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha in 1932, or the marriages of Lennart and Sigvard to commoners in 1932 and 1934?

Originally Posted by Marengo

Are you sure parliament made it possible in the 30-ties for a Swedish Royal to marry a foreign private mans daughter? Lilian was a private mans daughter and foreign, so under that rule Bertil and she could have married in the 40-ties instead of the 70-ties.

The Act of Succession 1810 to this day provides that Princes (and, since 1980, Princesses) of the Royal House who marry without the consent of the monarch automatically forfeit their right to the crown. The previous kings before Carl XVI Gustaf refused to grant their official consent for Bertil to marry Lilian, so he would not have retained his position if they married.

Originally Posted by Philippe Egalite'

Until the second half of the 20th century, Countess, this was the case with royal houses all over Europe. As you know unequal marriages used to be labeled morganatic. Royal men who would marry even princesses but from a minor princely family were forced to resign their rights of succession, lose their rank, title or style etc etc. If I am not mistaken,the first royal family to break this rule was the British.

The label of morganatic is usually applied to a marriage in which the higher-ranking spouse retains their rights, rank, title, etc. but does not share them with the lower-ranking spouse. That was not the case for the Swedish princes, though, as they resigned or were stripped of their own rights and rank upon their unequal marriages and their new lower ranks and titles were shared with their spouses.

Originally Posted by Meraude

If regarding the king as monarch and not royal then it's very possible that Daniel is the first ever commoner to marry a royal, at least after the accession of Gustav Vasa, as Gustav Vasa, Erik XIV and Johan III who all married commoners (non-royal noble women) were all monarchs when they got married.

Nobles are not commoners in the ordinary meaning of the term, but non-royal nobility were still considered unequal as spouses during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

[maria-olivia]

The last Royal/Royal Wedding is Princess Birgita's .

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by maria-olivia

The last Royal/Royal Wedding is Princess Birgita's .

Are you sure? What about Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduchess Gabriella of Austra/Habsburg-Lotharingen and His Royal Highness Prince Henri of Bourbon-Parma - whose wedding took place a little over 2 years ago?

And prior to that her mother also had a royal groom (wedding in the 80s; while Birgitta got married in 1961) and her aunt also married a prince (also in the 80s).

In between we had the wedding of the prince of Prussia with princess Sophie of Isenburg.

[Tatiana Maria]

The thread is located in the Swedish forum, so the discussion is about marriages of members of the Swedish royal house. (Outside of Sweden, marriages between actual royal houses - not only pretenders - still occur on a regular basis in some non-European monarchies.)

[SirGyamfi1]

[QUOTE=Meraude;1408388]The same could be said about the Battenbergs, queen Louise's father had been prince Louis of Battenberg before he relinquished that title in 1917 and became marquess of Milford Haven.


The Battenbergs weren’t necessarily royal, they were morganatic descendants of the House of Hesse. Plus it was a minor ranked and poor princely house. The difference between Sybilla and Louise is that Sybilla’s ancestry is largely full of royals and formerly sovereign houses of the Holy Roman Empire who married equally whereas Louise despite having similar royal ancestry, the moment her Hessian Prince ancestor married a mere countess whose family had just become vons after 1800 and weren’t even mediatized could not be counted as successors to the House of Hesse.

[Tatiana Maria]

Since the rule of the Act of Succession at the time of Gustaf Adolf and Sibylla's marriage was not that the bride had to have royal ancestry, but that she could not be the daughter of a "private man", one wonders on what basis the Swedish authorities designated Sibylla's father as a public man, given that he was a private citizen in the republic of Germany at the time. I wonder if perhaps it was his position in line to the British throne, or his former public position as a head of state.

[SirGyamfi1]

Originally Posted by Tatiana Maria

Since the rule of the Act of Succession at the time of Gustaf Adolf and Sibylla's marriage was not that the bride had to have royal ancestry, but that she could not be the daughter of a "private man", one wonders on what basis the Swedish authorities designated Sibylla's father as a public man, given that he was a private citizen in the republic of Germany at the time. I wonder if perhaps it was his position in line to the British throne, or his former public position as a head of state.

I was explaining the difference between Sibylla and Louise. What a royal house considers important will be different from what another country that abolished its monarchy sees as important. The fact was Sibylla was royal and of dynastic parentage through and through. The Swedish court of course still considered Sybilla as royal regardless of how German society became after WWI because she was royal and her father was a former Head of state.

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by Tatiana Maria

Since the rule of the Act of Succession at the time of Gustaf Adolf and Sibylla's marriage was not that the bride had to have royal ancestry, but that she could not be the daughter of a "private man", one wonders on what basis the Swedish authorities designated Sibylla's father as a public man, given that he was a private citizen in the republic of Germany at the time. I wonder if perhaps it was his position in line to the British throne, or his former public position as a head of state.

Originally Posted by SirGyamfi1

I was explaining the difference between Sibylla and Louise. What a royal house considers important will be different from what another country that abolished its monarchy sees as important. The fact was Sibylla was royal and of dynastic parentage through and through. The Swedish court of course still considered Sybilla as royal regardless of how German society became after WWI because she was royal and her father was a former Head of state.

I understood what you were discussing. My post was not a reply to yours, which is why I did not quote you.

However, since you have now connected your comments with mine, I will clarify again that they are unrelated because I was not talking about the Swedish royal court or "another country that abolished its monarchy", but the Act of Succession, which was and is part of the Swedish constitution. And, as Philippe Egalite and Meraude's posts abovethread explained in detail, the Act of Succession at the time prohibited princes of the royal house from marrying a "private man's daughter", if they wanted to remain in line to the throne.

So, constitutionally, it was not about whether Sibylla was "royal and of dynastic parentage through and through" or not. It was about whether she was a "private man's daughter" or not. That is what my question was dealing with. As JR76 explained, the Swedish parliament recognized that former royal families could be considered "private" despite their royal blood, which is why they narrowed the ban to "private Swedish man's daughter" in 1937 (five years after Sibylla's marriage).