雙語：爲什麼國王的妻子是王后，而女王的丈夫不是國王

Why a King’s Wife Is the Queen, But a Queen’s Husband Isn’t the King

爲什麼國王的妻子是王后，而女王的丈夫不是國王

At 133 words long, Prince Philip’s full title includes the words duke, earl, baron, royal knight, and just about every other noble designation you can think of. But the highest and perhaps most obvious moniker is conspicuously missing: king.

菲利普親王的全名有133個單詞，包括公爵、伯爵、男爵、皇家騎士，以及你能想到的幾乎所有其他貴族頭銜。但卻唯獨缺少那個最響亮、或許也是最明顯的一個別名：國王。

If you’ve watched The Crown or spent a lot of time reading about British monarchs, you might be aware that women who marry kings are referred to as queens—the most recent example was Queen Elizabeth II’s mother, who was known as Queen Elizabeth after her husband assumed the throne. The technical phrase is queen consort, where consort basically means that you gained your title through marriage. Why, then, did Prince Philip not become King Philip (or king consort) after his wife’s coronation?

如果你看過《王冠》，或者花了很多時間閱讀英國君主的書籍，你可能會知道，嫁給國王的女性被稱爲女王——最近的例子是伊麗莎白女王二世的母親，她在她的丈夫繼承王位後被稱爲伊麗莎白女王。專業術語是王后，意思是你通過婚姻獲得了你的頭銜。那麼，爲什麼菲利普親王在他的妻子加冕後沒有成爲菲利普國王（或王夫）呢?

According to Reader’s Digest, although parliamentary law doesn’t consider gender in determining the line of succession, it does factor it into the designation of titles. In general, a wife assumes the female form of her husband’s title. This is why Meghan Markle became the Duchess of Sussex when Prince Harry was named the Duke of Sussex, and it’s also why Kate Middleton will likely become Queen Catherine if and when Prince William is crowned king.

據《讀者文摘》報道，儘管議會法律在決定繼承權時沒有考慮性別因素，但在頭銜的指定中確實考慮了性別因素。一般來說，妻子是其丈夫頭銜的女性形式。這也就是當哈里王子被任命爲薩塞克斯公爵時，梅根·馬克爾成爲了薩塞克斯公爵夫人的原因，也是如果威廉王子加冕成爲國王，凱特·米德爾頓很可能成爲凱瑟琳女王的原因。

Husbands, on the other hand, don’t automatically match their wives’ titles, especially when it comes to the reigning monarchs. As Town and Country explains, queen can still be a symbolic title, but king only ever describes a reigning monarch. In other words, the word queen can either mean “female monarch” or “the wife of a monarch,” whereas king can only mean “monarch.” It’s a vestige of a historically patriarchal system of government that used to value sons over daughters (and it also sheds light on why kings rank higher than queens in a deck of cards).

然而，丈夫不會自動與妻子的頭銜相匹配，尤其是在涉及到在位君主的時候。正如《城鎮與鄉村》所解釋的，“女王”仍然是一個象徵性的頭銜，但“國王”只能描述在位的君主。換句話說，queen這個詞既可以表示“女性君主”，也可以表示“君主的妻子”，而king只能表示“君主”。這是歷史上重男輕女的父系政府制度的殘餘規定（這也是在一副紙牌中，國王的排位高於女王的原因）。

翻譯：MS小冰晶