Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
I suspect the end result would not be so different from the systems used in most Western nations today, even if the road there was different.
Hereditary Monarchy/Aristocracy, no intermarriage: In this system power is held by the monarch and/or the aristocrats, in whatever combination, but the twist is that noble families and the royal family are forbidden to marry each other, or to marry out-of-realm. Any offspring of such a marriage are automatically disinherited, if not worse. Instead, all members of the royal and noble families are required to marry commoners.
This prevents several of the common tropes of hereditary systems, for good or ill. You can't cement an alliance by dynastic marriage, and fiefs can't be combined into ever-larger subrealms by marital maneuvering, either. OTOH, you can't combine fiefs into ever larger subrealms by marital maneuvering, which removes a recurrent possible threat to the crown. (In the Middle Ages, royal stability was knocked off-kilter m ore than once because noble families intermarried and gained control of so much territory and wealth that they rivaled the monarch in power and income. In England the thumb rule was the stability required that the crown have an annual income in hard currency at least twice that of the mightiest subject.)
It also helps protect the aristocratic class from the dangers of inbreeding.
Politics now gets into how the commoners are chosen. How do the nobles, and the Prince(ss) meet prospective mates? How do prospective mates compete for the attention of a noble (because they will)? What exactly constitutes a commoner? (Does the son of the Duke's third son count as royalty or a commoner for marriage purposes?)
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Manticore has something like that in Honor Harrington only it is there to preserve balance of power.
One idea with that is to have a bride show. It would be ridiculously like The Batchelor.
In practice a disproportionate number of commoners to marry princes will be rich tradesfolk as not only do they have political advantage, a prince is likely to grow up knowing several personally, they won't be as impressed by his crown, and thus the chance of being burdened with a golddigger are less.