Cadet Positions Available (More Terms)

I said I would finish the story so here I go. After that, I have a few more terms, but they should be fairly simple; no male-preference cognatic primogeniture this time around. Right, so where was I?...

Oh yes. At the end of the unrecorded portion of history, it seems males had already won out in the political dominance arena. Why and how is anyone's guess, but the traditional sexist views are still probably the most adequate: women are physically weaker than men, have menstrual periods partially incapacitating them (at least traditionally) for a week each month, and spent much of their post-pubescent years making babies (again, traditionally and the average life expectancy for hunters and gatherers probably was around 30). This caused them unintentionally to appear weaker and the men somehow took over. It's really rather unknown how precisely this happened, but if you look at pretty much all animal species, one sex dominates the other. It took millenia of self-control to achieve the relative equality we have in the United States today, and even that is no where near complete.

Back off the soap box, the first civilizations that we have records of are Babylonia-Sumer, Xia Dynasty China, and pre-dynastic Egypt. All of them from very early on produced male-dominated kingships. The traditional history of Sumer establishes a long history of male rule with the first relatively historical king appearing c. 2900 BCE. The traditional kings lists in China date entirely male lines since before 2800 BCE, although the first king with historical evidence wasn't until the 800s BCE. Egypt is the earliest civilization with which we have archaeological evidence and it dates male rulers earlier than 3200 BCE. Thus, the three oldest known civilizations all report male dominance in their earliest entries into the history books. Women, were consorts (wives without hereditary right) in almost all cases.

Another thing, though, that these three cases introduce is the concept of dynasties. Even before history was recorded, dynasties in some form probably existed through the concept of hereditary succession. The Sumerians were descended father-to-son in most cases, as were the Chinese. It is uncertain with the earliest Egyptians, but the earliest Egyptians of the Old Kingdom had at least some form of hereditary succession. Thus, dynasties were alive and well centuries or even millenia before history first records them. And most importantly, although unfortunately, male-preferential descent was the general succession procedure even then. Thus the origins of dynastology begin here.

The story goes on, but I will finish it at a later point in time. A few more terms have come up that need explaining to better understand the current history of dynasties. These relate specifically to forms of descent from a senior dynastic line:

Cadency occurs when a dynast (monarch) has multiple children. This create a situation in which only one can be the senior child. Sure different succession systems work in different ways, but the first born is always important. If the first born is a female, she is usually married off to the most important person the dynast can get for her, hopefully a king or better. She also is usually first-in-line if all her brothers die. The first born male, though, is especially important because he establishes what is called the senior line. In any given dynasty, the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, &c., is the senior line. But wait! What if there are more sons than just the eldest?!

That is where cadency comes in. A cadet (or cadet branch) is a secondary line or, better yet, not the senior line. For every senior line, there can be an infinite number of cadets (poor wives!). Cadets don't have precedent and their children (even their eldest son's eldest son's eldest son) are not next in line to the throne. That doesn't mean they are barred from the throne, they just have rival lines to contend with. Many dynasties even have standard names for cadet lines: French kings usually title the their second eldest son the Duke of Orléans. If the Duke then has a son, he will become the next Duke of Orléans. Britain titles the second son the Duke of York. A cadet line develops when those brothers produce their own descendants, in a sense a sub-dynasty. Where the entire family is generally called a dynasty, though, individual cadet branches are usually called houses or sub-houses. Thus the House of Bourbon-Cadiz (which current rules Spain) is a sub-house of the House of Bourbon which is a cadet branch of the House of Capet or the Capetian Dynasty. You see, it gets confusing the more surviving children a monarch has.

One last thing about cadets, they require descent to be established. While I may be the eldest son in my family (the House of Whaley!), if I had a brother he wouldn't automatically become a cadet branch of the House of Whaley (although he would still be a cadet); even if he had a son, it is arguable. It takes a few generations to really establish a cadet branch. I set it usually at three generations; if someone has a second son, who has a son, who has a son, then that is a cadet branch. Otherwise, it just is a couple generations of a cadet's family. Obviously there are special cases, but this rule pretty much is good for me.

One other case that occurs and is directly related to cadency is bastardy. That's right, say it with me: bastardy. It isn't a swear word, at least not here. It is a fully-usable academic term. A bastard is a cadet, it just is one that was produced illegitimately. Illegitimacy is pretty easy to define because the Bible did it for us: it's when a child is produced by two unwed, unbetrothed individuals. Bastards have always caused dilemmas to historians. For the sake of dynastology, bastards are treated as any other cadet except they have (usually) lost their succession rights. Many, if not most, of them gain titles and lands and, in Britain at least, could sit in Parliament. As long as the father recognized the son, all went well. Except for that whole bastard thing.

The problem with a bastard is that they too can produce children, and while the first in the line may be illegitimate, the rest of them can be perfectly legitimate. Why punish the children for the father's crime? Unfortunately, most countries historically don't recognize bastards. William the Conqueror was a bastard, but his father really had no one else to give his land to in Normandy and William conquered England, not really inherited it. Pippin, King of Italy was a bastard, but Charlemagne was a kindly king when it came to his sons so he didn't persecute (plus he had at least three wives throughout his life). Portugal, though, is the only semi-modern state to allow illegitimate succession. When war broke out in 1580 after the death of Henry the Cardinal, the legitimate Portuguese line of kings ended. Actually, that's not entirely true, the legitimate line ended in 1383. The 1383-1580 house was an illegitimate branch of the legitimate one since there were no male heirs left. After a period of 60 years during which the Habsburgs ruled Portugal, a second illegitimate house called Bragança took control of Portugal. Thus, twice within 500 years Portugal chose bastardy over having a female line rule.

Regardless, bastardy in all reality is just another form of cadency with limited, if any, right to the throne. Cadency is the delegation of junior branches of a family into their own houses and sub-houses to better keep track of them. And male dominance of dynasties has been around since at least 3200 BCE and certainly earlier than that. Until next time!