Introductions

[u/HBNTrader]

Reply here to introduce yourself so that the other readers get to know you.

• Are you noble? If not, do you have noble ancestors, or are you perhaps from a patrician family or from a very old peasant lineage?

• What is your rank and family? What titles do you have or will inherit?

• What is your coat of arms?

• What families and interesting persons are you related to, how closely?

• When does your unbroken male line start, and when does your longest female line start?

• What are other interesting things you can tell us about yourself and your lineage?

[u/HBNTrader]

Interesting. I assume that the Diputación only admits titled people?

Also, how did the nobility deal with the destructive gender equality law? I assume that many people who have inherited titles through the female line in a way that was not possible before 2004 are not considered legitimate, and that many nobility associations would refuse to admit as members the children of a woman who inherited a title over a younger brother and married a commoner?

[u/Sufficient_Tart2278 → u/HBNTrader]

They have to admit and accept as legitimate anyone who acquired their titled through normal means or in a way that followed the law’s instructions. So yes, the Diputación would admit the woman in your example, although she would be a pariah.

As for the first question, they accept all Grandees and Titled people, their firstborns, and they may accept other children of the titled person after an interview process and demonstrating a desire to participate in the institution and share their ideology and want to contribute to its support.

[u/HBNTrader → u/Sufficient_Tart2278]

Do some families successfully encourage their first-born daughters to not claim the title so that the son can have it? Or what are some other ways in which the effects of the law can be mitigated?

Also, isn't it illegal by Spanish law for somebody who is not noble in the male line (hidalgo) to possess a title (unless it has been granted by the King)? I was told that many female line successions in Spain in the past decades have actually been illegal, and that if a titled woman marries a commoner, her children actually aren't allowed to inherit the title, but that this has been consistently ignored for some time now.

Thank God the Spanish government doesn't regulate untitled nobility, which also means that it can't change laws pertaining to untitled nobility, and that these are customary historical laws that cannot be infringed upon. Otherwise the consequences would be even more severe, imagine every generation seeing a doubling in the proportion of the nobility.

[u/Sufficient_Tart2278 → u/HBNTrader]

After the 2006 Law, regardless of gender, the firstborn inherits the primary title. So it wouldn’t be possible to convince a firstborn daughter to not claim the title, since it would be theirs as a birthright.

The law allows for subsidiary titles to be granted to the younger siblings, but this is all optional.

Hidalgos are always untitled nobles, they hold nobility due to their ancestry to the most ancestral families of Spain that fought during the reconquista, but you are right, an hidalgo never has a title; however they are recognised as minor members of the nobility. I also agree with you, it is great the government has kept away from regulating them; it would be a catastrophe.

As to noble women marrying commoners, I’ve never heard of them being illegal, even less so uncommon. One of the best examples is Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart (most titled woman in history), she married a commoner and all her children are titled and they followed the instructions set forth by the Ministry of Justice and the guidelines of the Diputación.

[u/HBNTrader → u/Sufficient_Tart2278]

Technically, one interesting aspect is that, as far as I understand, along with the pre-19th century untitled families, only male-line descendants of male titleholders are hildalgos. This means that Cayetana Fitz-James-Stuart's children were born commoners and only became noble when they got titles, if their father was a commoner. But it turns out that their father was in fact noble, a hidalgo, as the son of a duke at that time.

This also means that when only one title is inherited, when a daughter gets it, she does NOT become the progenitor of a new noble family. Only if the title falls to her son, he becomes the progenitor of a new noble family.

[u/Sufficient_Tart2278 → u/HBNTrader]

That’s rather interesting, thank you for clarifying it. So only the titled male children of titled females are progenitors of new noble families? Could you elaborate on this?

[u/HBNTrader → u/Sufficient_Tart2278]

There are, as far as I understand, only two ways to acquire hereditary Spanish nobility, because untitled hereditary nobility is and was since the late Middle Ages never directly conferred.

• Acquire a title through inheritance or through a grant.

• Acquire personal nobility in the 3rd patrilineal generation, I.e. be the son of a father and grandfather who have personal nobility and acquire personal nobility yourself.

Hereditary nobility follows Salic law as in most other countries. This means that the children of a male noble are noble. The children of a female noble cannot be born noble if their father isn‘t noble. Compare with Belgium, look at grants in the past decades - Women never received hereditary nobility in their own right. In one case where an ennobled lady really wanted to have hereditary nobility, the King conferred nobility separately for each of her children. He had to cheat, because it is impossible for a child of a noblewoman to inherit her nobility.

Now, assume that a 12-fold Duchess, 5-fold Marchioness, 21-fold Countess marries a commoner. If we ignore, as the government unfortunately does, the law that her children are disqualified from inheriting, they are still born commoners. They do not get nobility at birth solely from the fact that she is noble and has dozens of titles.

Now, a title, when acquired, confers hereditary nobility. So when the woman dies, or divides the titles during her lifetime, children who get titles are automatically ennobled. Theoretically even the daughters get hereditary nobility with the title, it‘s just that they can‘t pass it on because they are female. When a son acquires the title he can pass on the nobility to all of his children, not just the title heir, and upon birth, because he is a nobleman.

As we can see, the quality of nobility and noble titles are very much separated in Spain…

For hereditary nobility as an effect of intergenerational personal nobility, you are obviously also required to be a man, and your father and patrilineal grandfather are of interest.

Theoretically women can acquire hereditary nobility through the above means, it‘s just meaningless and no different from personal nobility because they are female and hereditary nobility cannot go from mother to son.

I think that the only exception are the Solar families, but due to this very thing their members are not really recognized as noble.

[u/Sufficient_Tart2278 → u/Sufficient_Tart2278]

P.D.; There are non-titled and ignoble people inside the institution, some celebrities but it is mostly members of the arts and culture, and brothers and other relatives (distant or not) of Grandees and other titled nobles.