Daughters of titled aristocrats are calling for a re-examination of
inheritance rules amid claims the proposed change in succession laws which will allow a daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to
become Queen would
leave the gentry "two steps behind" the royal family with calls for the aristocracy to overhaul its own
traditions to grant women equality with men by ending the rule of male primogeniture.
The anomaly was highlighted last year by Julian Fellowes, a life peer, who described it as “outrageous” that his wife Emma Kitchener’s family title will die out rather than pass to a female heir. The current Earl, Henry Herbert Kitchener, a descendant of Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, is 92 and has no children. Emma Kitchener is his niece but, under the current practice, cannot inherit.
Another victim of this sexual discrimination is Lady Clare Kerr whose father, the Tory politician Michael Ancram, is the 13th Marquess of Lothian, but neither she nor her younger sister will inherit the title which will eventually pass to an uncle. Lady Clare, who is married to the Tory minister Nick Hurd, said it was now time to re-examine the practice.
Also among those being passed over under inheritance rules are the three daughters of the Duke of Rutland: Lady Violet Manners, 19, and her sisters Lady Alice and Lady Eliza. The heir to their family seat, Belvoir Castle, is their 13-year-old brother Charles, the Marquess of Granby.
Peter Yorke, author of the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, said that the tradition of male primogeniture had developed to preserve aristocratic power and wealth by preventing estates being divided up but was now ripe for reform. “What mattered was that the estate goes to one person...n this sense primogeniture is more important than gender, it goes to one person rather than being divided up. The relative survival of the British aristocracy is down to them being cruel to younger sons, but also daughters. Daughters you married off, younger sons became soldiers or clergymen or whatever, they went off to safe bits of the establishment"
Socialist Courier cares little for the rights of the female aristocracy to feudal titles, baronial homes and family estates.
The anomaly was highlighted last year by Julian Fellowes, a life peer, who described it as “outrageous” that his wife Emma Kitchener’s family title will die out rather than pass to a female heir. The current Earl, Henry Herbert Kitchener, a descendant of Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, is 92 and has no children. Emma Kitchener is his niece but, under the current practice, cannot inherit.
Another victim of this sexual discrimination is Lady Clare Kerr whose father, the Tory politician Michael Ancram, is the 13th Marquess of Lothian, but neither she nor her younger sister will inherit the title which will eventually pass to an uncle. Lady Clare, who is married to the Tory minister Nick Hurd, said it was now time to re-examine the practice.
Also among those being passed over under inheritance rules are the three daughters of the Duke of Rutland: Lady Violet Manners, 19, and her sisters Lady Alice and Lady Eliza. The heir to their family seat, Belvoir Castle, is their 13-year-old brother Charles, the Marquess of Granby.
Peter Yorke, author of the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, said that the tradition of male primogeniture had developed to preserve aristocratic power and wealth by preventing estates being divided up but was now ripe for reform. “What mattered was that the estate goes to one person...n this sense primogeniture is more important than gender, it goes to one person rather than being divided up. The relative survival of the British aristocracy is down to them being cruel to younger sons, but also daughters. Daughters you married off, younger sons became soldiers or clergymen or whatever, they went off to safe bits of the establishment"
Socialist Courier cares little for the rights of the female aristocracy to feudal titles, baronial homes and family estates.
