Morganatic marriage

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A morganatic marriage is a type of marriage which can be contracted in certain countries, usually between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage. It is also known as a left-handed marriage because in the wedding ceremony the groom held his bride's right hand with his left hand instead of his right.[1]

Often, this is a marriage between a male from a royal or reigning house, often a historical German state, and a woman of lesser status (a non-royal or non-reigning house, or a woman with a profession that is traditionally considered lower-status). Neither the bride nor any children of the marriage has any claim on the groom's titles, rights, or entailed property. The children are considered legitimate on other counts and the prohibition of bigamy applies.

It is also possible for a woman to marry a man of lower rank morganatically. This is extremely rare as women of high rank traditionally did not have titles to pass on, and in most cases did not choose their own husbands, but Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma (by birth an Archduchess of the Imperial House of Habsburg, and by her first marriage an Empress of France) contracted a morganatic second marriage with a count after the death of her first husband Napoleon I. Another case was that of Queen Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, regent of Spain after her husband's (Ferdinand VII) death while their daughter, the future Isabella II was a minor. She married one of her guards in a secret marriage.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

Morganatic, not used in English until 1727 (OED), is derived from the medieval Latin morganaticus from the Late Latin phrase matrimonium ad morganaticam and refers to the gift given by the groom to the bride on the morning after the wedding, morning gift, i.e. dower. The Latin term applied to a Germanic custom, was adopted from a Germanic term, *morgangeba (compare Early English morgengifu and German Morgengabe). The literal meaning is explained in a 16th century passage quoted by Du Cange, a marriage by which the wife and the children that may be born are gift.[2]

Meyers Konversations-Lexikon of 1888 gives an etymology of the German term Morganitische Ehe [3] as a combination of the ancient Gothic morgjan, to limit, to restrict, occasioned by the restricted gifts from the groom in such a marriage and the morning gift. Morgen is the German word for morning, while the Latin word is matutinus.

[edit] History

The morning gift has been a customary property arrangement for marriage present first in early medieval German cultures (such as Langobards) and also of ancient Germanic tribes, and the church drove its adoption into other countries in order to improve the wife's security by this additional benefit. The bride received a settled property from the bridegroom's clan — it was intended to ensure her livelihood in widowhood, and it was to be kept separate as the wife's discrete possession. However, when a marriage contract is made wherein the bride and the children of the marriage will not receive anything else (than the dower) from the bridegroom or from his inheritance or clan, that sort of marriage was dubbed as "marriage with only the dower and no other inheritance", i.e. matrimonium ad morganaticum.

The practice of morganatic marriage was most common in the German-speaking parts of Europe, where equality of birth between the spouses was considered an important principle among the reigning houses and high nobility. The German name was Ehe zur linken Hand (marriage by the left hand) and the husband gave his left hand during the wedding ceremony instead of the right.

Morganatic marriage is not, and has not been, possible in jurisdictions that do not allow for the required freedom of contracting with regard to the marriage contract, as it is an agreement containing that pre-emptive limitation to the inheritance and property rights of the spouse and the children.

There has never been morganatic marriage in France and morganatic marriage never existed in French laws. Equality of birth is not so important in France because antiquity of nobility in the male line is only taken into account: a Frenchman should have cent ans de noblesse (100 years in the male line) to become a Knight of Malta. A German should have quatre quartiers de noblesse (all four grandparents being noble) for the same purpose.

There is only one example of a French practice, somewhat different, a (openly) secret marriage - that is, the marriage took place in private and was never officially announced (although it might be widely known), and thus the woman never publicly shared in her husband's titles and rank. Louis XIV married Madame de Maintenon, his second wife, this way. Madame de Maintenon was too old to bear children in this marriage.

[edit] The United Kingdom

Marriages have never been considered morganatic in any part of the United Kingdom. The present British monarch, Elizabeth II, is herself the daughter of a King (George VI) and a commoner (Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, who automatically became Queen-consort on her husband's accession to the throne). All four of Elizabeth II's children have married commoners, with no effect on the order of succession.

It has been suggested that William, Prince of Orange expected to have a strong claim to the throne of England after the Duke of York during the reign of Charles II[4]. In fact, the Duke's two daughters from his first marriage, Princess Mary (b. 1662) and Princess Anne, were considered to have the stronger claim by the English establishment. William's expectation was based on the continental practice of morganatic marriage, since the mother of both princesses, Anne Hyde was a commoner and a lady-in-waiting to William's mother, Princess Mary Stuart (b. 1631). It was by his mother, a sister of Charles II and the Duke of York, that William claimed the throne, because, to his mind, the son of a princess had a stronger claim than the daughter of a commoner. It was to shore up his own claim to the throne that he agreed to marry his first cousin, Princess Mary. When James II fled at the Glorious Revolution, William refused to accept the title of Prince Consort (as Philip II of Spain had held under the first Queen Mary in the 1550's) and insisted on being named king in his own right. The compromise solution involved naming both to the crown as the only joint rulers in the history of England.

The Royal Marriages Act of 1772 did made it illegal for any member of the British royal family to marry without the permission of the sovereign. A marriage contracted without the sovereign’s consent might be lawful in the eyes of the church, but the children born of it could not inherit any claim to the throne: thus the official denial of the marriage of George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Mrs Fitzherbert, and the refusal of Victoria to the marriage of the second Duke of Cambridge, whose morganatic wife, Sarah Louisa Fairbrother was refused the title of Duchess, but was received everywhere as "Mrs FitzGeorge".

Another case was the second marriage of Augustus, Duke of Sussex, sixth son of George III of Great Britain, who undertook altogether two marriages against the provisions of the Act, thus being invalid on British soil. However, his second marriage with Letitia Underwood was tolerated by Queen Victoria. Presumably, in the eyes of law, the Duke was never married to Letitia. Had it been otherwise, she would have been the Duchess of Sussex. Queen Victoria created her Duchess of Inverness and the duke and duchess cohabited, being socially regarded as spouses. If the situation is interpreted in a way that their marriage was valid, then the Queen's actions would mean that it was morganatic and that the only titles and rights Letitia was entitled to were those specifically granted to her, but not those of the duke.

The marriage of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson was not to be morganatic, although Edward had proposed this expediency to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who rejected the idea after consultations with the governments of the Dominions.[5] Ultimately, Edward renounced all of his titles for himself and successors when he abdicated, and was created Duke of Windsor. When they married, his wife became Duchess, and any male children would not have inherited the title. The style H.R.H. (Her Royal Highness) is in the sovereign's gift, though it is normally conferred as a matter of course. But it was specifically not granted to Wallis Simpson. As it happened, they had no children.

Upon the engagement of Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles in February 2005, it was announced that, after the marriage, Mrs Parker Bowles would take the title Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall, and that once the Prince accedes to the throne she would not be known as Queen Camilla but as Her Royal Highness The Princess Consort. This form of address is based on that used by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, who was the Prince Consort.

However, such a marriage cannot be considered to be morganatic for two reasons: firstly, the decision has not been based upon Mrs Parker Bowles's social rank, but upon her marital status; secondly, this decision does not have any legal standing — although she has stated that she will not use the title (due to the sensitivity of some of the British public regarding her role in the breakup of Prince Charles's first marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales), under United Kingdom law, Mrs Parker Bowles legally became the HRH Camilla, Princess of Wales upon her marriage to Prince Charles. Similarly, upon Charles's accession she will automatically become Queen Consort, not Princess Consort. Thus, Camilla has acquired her husbands full rank and titles through marriage, but is choosing not to style herself this way. Although it is unlikely, due to their age, that the couple would now have children, any children would be entitled to Royal titles, and be situated immediately after Prince Harry and his legitimate descendants in order of succession to the British throne.

There is no legal reason why a Princess of Wales or a Queen Consort cannot choose to be known by a lesser style and title than she has. A similar recent instance is the decision that the daughter of the Earl of Wessex would be known simply as Lady Louise Windsor rather than the HRH Princess Louise of Wessex. It was acknowledged however that Lady Louise would be free to assume the higher (and correct) style and title upon reaching adulthood.

[edit] Examples

Examples of morganatic marriage:

  • Grand Duke Michael Mihailovich of Russia (October 4, 1861 - April 26, 1929) was the third child of Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and his wife Olga Fedorovna (born Princess Cecilie of Baden). He attracted the displeasure of the Tsar by marrying Sophie, Countess of Merenberg, herself the product of a Morganatic marriage.
  • King Louis I of Bavaria (1786–1868) and Lola Montes (Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, 1818?–1861) who was made Countess of Lansfeld. [1]
  • Tsesarevich Constantine Pavlovich, Governor of Poland, renounced from succession (though retained the titles, place in etiquette precedence, and the position as Viceroy of Poland) for having married a Polish countess Joanna Grudzińska, and she was not allowed to her husband's titles.
  • Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, ruler of the Tirol married firstly Philippine Welser, a bourgeois girl though very wealthy. Their children were given a separate title and the issue of Ferdinand's second (and equal) marriage were preferred.
  • Late in his life, the widowed king consort Fernando II of Portugal married the opera singer Elisa Hendler, who was created countess of Edla.
  • Charles Frederick, the future 1st Grand Duke of Baden and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the reigning prince of his state, after the death of his first consort Caroline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, married in 1787 a younger lady-in-waiting, Louise Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg, using the morganatic formula. At the wedding arrangements, she was created Freifrau von Hochberg. In 1796, the Holy Roman Emperor created her Heilige Römische Reichsgräfin von und zu Hochberg (HRE Countess of Hochberg, Illustrious Highness). After the death of the old grand duke, his grandson Grand Duke Charles I could see that the ancient House of Baden would go extinct in the male line, if something requisite was not done. Count Leopold of Hochberg (1790-1852), the eldest son of the abovesaid marriage, was married to his great-niece Sophie, granddaughter of the 1st grand duke's first marriage and a daughter of an earlier King of Sweden. To achieve the objective of avoiding extinction, the grand duke Charles I as the heir of the late 1st grand duke on one part and the yet living Countess of Hochberg on the other, contracted an amendment to her marriage stipulations, where the grand duke from his House's part relinquished the morganatical limitation. Accordingly, in the same year, the diet of Baden decreed that Leopold and his two younger brothers are in the line of succession to the Grand Duchy of Baden, as their mother's marriage was no longer limited to rights of only the Morgengabe estate of Hochberg. Louise of Hochberg was accorded the personal title "Princess of Baden", thus she did not become retroactively a dowager Grand Duchess of Baden. The changes met with opposition from King Maximilian I of Bavaria, the husband of one of the sisters of grand duke Charles I, having married her as his second wife, because the king of Bavaria had been waiting for a chance to grab the territories of Baden, to fill the gap between Rhenish Palatinate and Bavaria's major part, the two regions being geographically fully separated from each other by a northern stretch of Baden. Upon the death of Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden, the 1st grand duke's younger and last surviving son of the first marriage, in 1830, Leopold succeeded as 4th reigning Grand Duke of Baden. His descendants, originally from that morganatic marriage, held the grand duchy until 1918 revolution, and still are its claimants.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Stritof, Sheri & Bob. Left-Handed Marriage. about.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
  2. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Edition
  3. ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon 4th Edition
  4. ^ Van der zee and Van der zee, 1688: A Revolution in the family. Viking, Great Britain: 1988. p 52
  5. ^ Taylor, A.J.P., English History, 1914-1945, Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 401.

[edit] Other Sources

  • Crawford, Donald. Michael and Natasha, Scribner (1997). ISBN 0-684-83430-8ca:Matrimoni morganàtic

de:Morganatische Ehe es:Matrimonio morganático fr:Mariage morganatique it:Matrimonio morganatico nl:Morganatisch huwelijk no:Morganatisk ekteskap pl:Związek morganatyczny pt:Casamento morganático ru:Морганатический брак sv:Morganatiskt äktenskap sr:Морганатски брак

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