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== [[Fairy Tale]]s ==
* The king and queen in "[[Donkeyskin]]" only had a daughter, and were content with this. But the queen fell ill and died without leaving a male heir, but not before saddling him with the additional restriction that his new wife equal her in beauty and other attributes. Which, after many failed considerations, leads him to the conclusion that his new wife should be {{spoiler|[[Parental Incest|his own daughter]]}}. Because that would be more acceptable than simply {{spoiler|letting her inherit the throne}}. {{spoiler|She manages to escape that situation, and marry a prince, to boot. Thankfully, the prince is not her brother}}.
** Other tales of this type include: "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130718151024/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/allfur.html All-Kinds-of-Fur]", "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131020230909/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/kingdaughter.html The King Who Wished Marry To His Daughter]", "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130620100644/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/shebear.html The She-Bear]", "[https://web.archive.org/web/20140325092007/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/margerywhitecoat.html Margery White Coats]", and "[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0510b.html#canziani Golden-Teeth]".
*** There is a kinder version of that tale in which the requirements (the new queen must be as beautiful as the old one with the same golden hair) are the same and the princess is the only one who fulfills them. However the king merely decides to marry her off to one of his advisers and she opts to run away rather than be forced into a loveless marriage.
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130718151309/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/catskin.html Catskin]", the nobleman doesn't care about his daughter because he wants a son. When she grows up, he orders her married off to the first man who will have her and she has to run away.
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[Pan's
* The fact that only males can inherit the throne in ''[[Stardust (film)|Stardust]]'' means that Princess Una isn't a target of her other brothers. It helps they have no idea where she is.
** Not only that, but their law also demands that there be no other contenders, which means that any other male heir has to be dead.
** Of course, it is {{spoiler|Una's son who inherits the throne after all his uncles die}}.
* ''[[Caligula]]'': the emperor refused to marry Caesonia until she bore him a son. When his sister Drusilla pointed out that it would be impossible to tell if the child was actually his, he replied that he would simply keep her under constant guard. The guards would be homosexuals. Who'd been castrated.
* The king in Disney's ''[[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]]'' wants his son to marry so that he (the king) may have grandchildren. Subverted in that the king [[I Want Grandkids|is more interested in "the pitter patter of little feet"]] rather than having an heir to the throne.
* The king in ''[[Fantaghiro]]'' really insists on having a male heir, as (paraphrased) when his third child was born:
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'''King:''' A GIRL? What SORCERY is this? That white which must have CURSED me! }}
* Possible examples in ''[[The Thief of Bagdad]]''; Jaffar's stated reason for asking for the hand of the princess of Basra is that he wants to start a dynasty. The sultan of Basra then says, "I tried that once, and what have I got? A daughter!" (Of course, Jaffar ''is'' a usurper, for whom having a marriage and heir with royal blood would probably be a bit more important.)
* Frederich is shown praying desperately for a son in ''[[Snow White: A
== [[Literature]] ==
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* In ''[[The Witcher]] 2'', one of the triggers that start the events of the game is that king Foltest has a lack of proper male heirs: He has a bastard son, who is still technically higher on the succession line than Foltest's acknowledged daughter (though said daughter [[Brother-Sister Incest|is also his niece]], which possibly explains that part). {{spoiler|The poor boy is assassinated halfway through the game, leaving his other sister (Foltest's youngest, a bastard daughter) as heir incumbent. Geralt's actions may end up helping to legitimize her claim.}}
* An integral part of ''[[Sengoku (video game)|Sengoku]]'' is ensuring you have male heirs. If you don't, and your clan leader dies, you lose.
* In [[World of Warcraft]], it' sindicated that [[Parents as People|Magni]] was disappointed because his only child Moira was not a male heir. As a
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* [[Henry VIII]] of England divorced his first wife because of this. He even went so far as to reject the Roman Catholic Church because they wouldn't let him get his marriages annulled. He had some justification—his father was an upstart who'd taken the throne after a [[Wars of the Roses|long civil war]], and he couldn't be sure a daughter would be accepted. To make matters worse, enemies could make a very good case that each of his daughters was illegitimate—and in the case of Elizabeth, that she wasn't even his daughter. See: [[The House of Tudor]] for more on him and his family, including Elizabeth I.
** Nowadays, the UK partially averts this: Women may inherit, [[Double Standard|but only if they have no living brothers]]. Moves are underway to at least talk about changing it. In Britain we prefer seismic changes to happen [[Department of Redundancy Department|gradually over time if at all necessary]]. [[The House of Stuart|Big changes in a short period]] can be very unseemly.
** The Kingdom of Hannover was once in a personal union with the United Kingdom, but they only allowed male heirs causing a split when [[Queen
* Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100219104149/http://www.theonion.com/content/news/clinton_chastises_hillary_for this] Onion article.
* Absolutely [[Truth in Television]] throughout most of history, and in much of the world. You were an unfortunate queen if you couldn't bear a son—if you were lucky, the king wouldn't set you aside. Otherwise, you'd end up divorced, beheaded, poisoned, locked up in a convent, etc. Princesses becoming queens regnant (ruling queens) had all sorts of problems. No one wanted a female ruler, because if she married her kingdom would, most likely, be combined with that of her husband. The Iberian kingdoms solved this problem by having their queens marry their close blood relatives, so the crown stayed inside the kingdom. Queen Maria I of Portugal married her UNCLE to avoid marrying a foreign prince. They had
** The Iberian example above was not the worst in that corner of Europe. The House of Hapsburg lucked into Castile/Aragon/Burgundy/the Low Countries because the Houses of Valois and Trastámara married a princess into their dynasty and failed to pop out a male heir. To avoid being on the receiving end of this the two branches of their house swapped most of their princesses between the Spanish and Austrian courts. The long term effects of [[wikipedia:Image:Carlos segundo80.png|this policy]]... did not [https://web.archive.org/web/20091027030202/http://www.xs4all.nl/~monarchs/madmonarchs/carlos2/carlos2_bio.htm work out too well] for the [[wikipedia:War of the Spanish Succession|Madrid branch]], and the male line of the Vienna branch puttered to a halt not long afterwards with [[wikipedia:War of the Austrian Succession|predictable results]] (luckily for them, the people who ended up the heirs were content to ''call'' themselves Habsburgs).
** The
* One of the main reasons for this is that it is assumed that a male would be more capable of defending the family possessions in battle. Another is that the system is a feedback loop: if it is assumed that men should be prejudiced in wills it carries its own encouragement, as a female will take land away while a male will bring it in.
* The [[Unfortunate Implications]] of China's One Child Policy is that, since families want male heirs, they've been having (or ''[[Offing the Offspring|keeping]]'') too many sons and not enough daughters, which means not enough wives to go around (which anyone could tell you is what happens when it's only acceptable to have sons!). Oops! The government eventually had to compromise by allowing girls to inherit their family name and giving families "incentives" (read: money) to have baby girls.
** [[Unfortunate Implications]] aside, that ''would'' have been an effective population control in a generation or two.
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* In ancient Rome, if you weren't able to produce a biological heir, adopting one worked just as fine. In fact, the majority of Roman emperors inherited the empire after having been adopted by the previous emperor. Some even disregarded their biological children in favour of an heir of their choosing. Julius Caesar, for example, had a son by Cleopatra, but chose to adopt his sister's grandson as his firstborn son and made him his heir instead. This adopted son later became known as Emperor Augustus, who in turn adopted his wife's first son (fathered by her previous husband) as his heir. This proved to be a smart tactic, as often the person who seemed best suited to take over the empire would be adopted by the emperor, instead of trusting that pure biology would make someone a great leader.
** Julius Caesar couldn't adopt any of his illegitimate sons (he had several, Caesarion was merely the most famous) because they weren't Roman citizens. He had only one child who was a Roman citizen, Julia Caesaris, and she and her infant son predeceased him.
*** Fair point, but
*** Who then went on and murdered Caesarion just in case he would dare to claim the throne as his.
* In Japan, there was a rather large controversy about there not being a suitable male heir to inherit the imperial throne, such that it came to the point that they were about to change the constitution to allow a woman to do so. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view
** The former Imperial Princess had actually suffered from severe stress-induced illnesses from the pressure, to where her husband actually ''publicly rebuked his whole family'' for it.
*** The actual problem is not a female emperor - there were already some. But in the whole time none of them had a child that inherited the throne. By now this already developed into an unofficial rule and having only a baby girl means that nobody after her can inherit. Another part of the problem is that all other lines of the imperial family were given surnames (
* Five European countries have done away with this altogether: Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and Denmark. In other words, these countries provide that a woman can inherit the throne ''even if she has younger brothers'' (sometimes known as "absolute primogeniture"). The first of these changes was passed in Sweden effective January 1, 1980, and so far no woman has actually inherited a crown via absolute primogeniture; Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria is likely to eventually become the first woman in the modern world to inherit a crown despite having a living brother. (Even though the Netherlands and Denmark have queens now, those queens didn't have any brothers.)
** There are occasional rumours of the UK doing something similar, and even if they did so the top three in the line of succession (Charles, Elizabeth II's eldest child as well as eldest son and Charles's two sons) wouldn't change. This is complicated by the fact that the Commonwealth nations that are still constitutional monarchies (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.) need to be in agreement otherwise you might wind up with multiple, separate lines of succession or Australia becoming a republic.
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** In light of this, and other, gender tropes, some of these monarchies (UK, Netherlands, Denmark) may give the title of queen to the wife of a male heir, but give a title like prince consort to the husband of a female heir: If they named the husband King, people might get the impression that he's the head of state. Also, from the 1600s to the 1900s it was considered shameful and effeminate in much of the West for a man to take a title, even King, based on his wife's status.
*** The UK example complicates things even further, as because nobody really likes Prince Charles' second wife Camilla, she will probably only ever be referred to as "Princess Consort Camilla" should Charles take the throne, even though she will legally be Queen. Weird, eh?
**** In recent years{{when}} though public opinion has been warming up to Camilla, and when Charles does become King in due time, there might be very few who would object to a Queen Camilla.
* Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden completely averted this trope by making his daughter Christina the heir of the throne. He even ordered that Christina should be brought up as a prince, which means that she received an education that was completely reserved to the males. Her gender role was so inverted that Axel Oxenstierna even wrote that "She is not at all like a female", because she had "a bright intelligence". Although, it must be pointed out that Christina herself didn't like being a queen.
** Unfortunately did not work out so well in this case, and it's notable that Gustavus Adolphus did have older illegitimate children, including one who was a military officer and by all accounts brilliant. Christina tired of ruling, abdicated to her Cousin, and the empire her father put together did not last.
* Also averted by [[Maria Theresa]] of Austria. When a series of unfortunate events killed of all other available male heirs, her father issued a pragmatic sanction that left the Habsburg domains to her. He paid many rulers to accept it and not contest her claim to the throne once she would succeed him. Of course, when he did die, many thought this was a prime opportunity to go back on their word and grab some land. It mostly didn't work out (Silesia was lost to Prussia, the Habsburgs ''almost'' gained Bavaria, but otherwise Maria Theresa went on to rule the Habsburg domains for 40 years).
** For those who don't get the technicality, "Pragmatic Sanction" was the term under Habsburg law for, "exception to normal proceedings issued by Imperial decree". An important succession tangle might be the reason for issuing one, and this one was the most famous Pragmatic Sanction. As might be expected it required a considerable amount of negotiation to butter up the Imperial nobility before getting it through. For more information read Edward Crankshaw's excellent biography of Maria Theresa.
* The Netherlands avert this BIG
** This happened more by coincidence than anything else. Wilhelmina was the sole surviving child of William III, Juliana was a single child, and Beatrix has no male siblings.
* Another [[Real Life]] aversion: [[wikipedia:Jadwiga of Poland|Jadwiga]], a medieval king of Poland. Yes, her official title was [[She Is the King|King, not Queen]]. Apparently, she couldn't rule the country as a Queen, but [[Aint No Rule|there was no rule]] specifying the King must be male.
** Likewise [[Maria Theresa]] (above) was proclaimed '''King''' of Hungary. Moriamur pro rege nostra Maria Theresa!
* It was this issue that started a period in English history known as The Anarchy, when Henry I named his lone surviving child, Matilda, his heir. It was a bit more complicated, in that not only were the Anglo-Norman barons wary of having a woman on the throne, but her husband was from Anjou, Normandy's rival. A faction of barons helped Stephen of Blois onto the throne, which plunged England into 19 years of civil war until a resolution was reached where Stephen's own sons would be bypassed for succession in favor of Matilda's son, the future Henry II, who was the founder of England's Plantagenet dynasty, which of course produced some of England's most famous kings,
**
*** The situation was even more complicated than that: Salic law didn't just bar women from the throne
* This trope still exists today as [[Real Life]] examples can be found in modern China, India, and other nations, where the birth of a female is often met with disappointment. The wish for a male is reinforced by several patriarchal traditions; the male child is usually the one who passes down the family name while the female takes her husband's name, the male child inherits the property while anything inherited by the female goes to her husband, and the male would be responsible for caring for his parents in their old age, while the female was expected to marry into her husband's family and care for ''his'' parents.
** As noted above, this has had rather terrible consequences for China. However, India has not been immune to the same pressures: despite the absence of a policy ''requiring'' that families limit their size, increasing prosperity and a government awareness campaign on overpopulation have caused many Indians to want to limit the size of their families (typically 2-3 children). However, the traditional attitudes remain, and many Indian women selectively abort female children, although this is technically illegal. While the gender ratios in India are nowhere nearly as skewed as in China, it is a problem that the Indian government is taking quite seriously.
*** Lest you think that this is a problem of India and China only, the phenomenon is actually running rampant in the increasingly-prosperous nations of Asia, and to a much lesser extent Africa as well. Perhaps surprisingly, the developing countries of the Arab World have been largely exempt from this; explanations range from the explicit ban on killing female newborns in Islam<ref>A pre-Islamic Arab custom explicitly denounced by God and the Prophet as barbaric</ref> and the abortion taboo in Islamic culture to the Arab custom of giving a dower rather than a dowry (i.e. the groom and his family pay/give a gift to the bride and her family, not the other way around, as in India).
* Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, reacted differently to the fact that neither of his sons survived: He thought that was a sign that the monarchy was doomed. This was one reason he showed no resistance to being overthrown. Sadly, Brazil pretty much went to hell after his overthrow (republican rule was a ploy by the wealthy landowning <ref>and until a year before the establishment of the Republic,
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[[Category:Royalty and Nobility Tropes]]
[[Category:Princely Tropes]]
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[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]
[[Category:Will and Inheritance Tropes]]
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