Royal Women on Three Continents

Roderick J. Barman. Princess Isabel of Brazil: Gender and Power in the Nineteenth Century. Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2002. xiv+291 pp.; ill. ISBN 0-8420-2845-5 (cl); 0-8420-2846-3 (pb).

Shaharyar M. Khan. The Begums of Bhopal: A Dynasty of Women Rulers in Raj India. New York: Palgrave, 2001. x+276 pp.; ill. ISBN 1-86064-528-3 (cl).

Hugo Vickers. Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002. xvii+477pp.: ill. ISBN 0-312-28886-7 (cl).

Monarchies have structured governments since the dawn of human history, and in various forms they still exist today. Founded on the dynastic principle, they place women as child bearers at the very center of the state, for who is closer to a ruler than his mother, or the mother of his heir, or perhaps the heir herself? Yet regardless of whether the ruler is viewed as a figurehead, a symbol of state, or the fount of authority, men are always granted a greater right to the throne than women, and they are more likely to be seen as political actors. In some countries—France before the twentieth century and Japan in modern times—women were legally barred from succession. Two of the books under review describe what happens when women become rulers because no male is available, and point to an intriguing connection between women rulers and the end of a dynasty. The third chronicles the life of a royal woman whose pedigree and biological function linked her to the crowned heads of twentieth-century Europe. All three biographies explicitly or implicitly address questions regarding the relationships between gender and power, the place of monarchy in modernizing states, the constituents of royal identity, and the justification for studying the small class of royal women or indeed writing biography at all.

Written by a professional historian and aimed at undergraduates, Princess Isabel of Brazil uses gender as the chief category of analysis in examining the downfall of the short-lived Brazilian dynasty founded in 1822 by a scion of the Portuguese monarchy. The chapter titles emphasize Isabel's progress through the female life cycle from daughter to bride to wife and finally to "her own woman" once she and her father are forced to leave Brazil. Only one chapter, "Empress-in-Waiting," points to the political role that dominated her life and shaped her identity from her birth in 1846 to exile in 1889.

Isabel's training for rule started early. The death of her brother and the preference of her father Pedro II for mistresses over his high-born and devoted but unattractive wife meant that she became heir to the throne at age four. Educated under her father's careful eye, Isabel achieved mastery of European languages and scientific knowledge far in excess of most women of her day, yet she faced greater restraints on her freedom of movement. She spent her childhood in seclusion, seeing no one beyond her immediate family and a few female playmates her own age plus slaves, servants, and tutors whose sole function it was to serve the ruling family. As there were far more servants than tasks to occupy them, the ladies-in-waiting spent much time in mind-numbing idleness.

In the Western world during the nineteenth century, royal women broke with conventional roles for women by leading both private and public lives. Like ordinary women, they sought love, intimacy, and happiness in marriage. Their partners were selected for dynastic reasons as a matter of public policy, and the weddings took place in the glare of publicity. Isabel first appeared in the male public gaze for her coming-of-age ceremony at age fourteen and then at her marriage to a member of the French Orléans family in 1864. Her husband escorted her on lengthy trips to Europe, performed his duty in procreating children, led Brazilian armies against Paraguay, and took advantage of his male prerogative to...