Editing Primogeniture (section)

==Preference for males==
{{See also|Death in childbirth|female infertility|coverture|civil war}}
{{Confusing|section|date=April 2020}}
The preference for males in most systems of primogeniture (and in other mechanisms of hereditary succession) comes mostly from the perceived nature of the tasks and role of the monarch: a monarch/[[prince]] (the latter means in Latin, chieftain) most usually was, first and foremost, a military leader, as in the [[Book of Numbers]].<ref>"you: Eleazor the Priest and Joshua son of Nun. And you shall also take a chieftain from each tribe through whom the land shall be apportioned. These are the names of the men...{{Bibleverse|Numbers|34:17}}</ref>

Social norms pointing to kings further flow from making clear, first-generation survivors, so to avoid [[civil war]]. Lacking advanced healthcare and resource-conscious [[family planning]], [[death in childbirth|mothers faced high risk in enduring such regular childbirth]]. Also in pre-20th century medicine [[female infertility|about 10% of women could not have children]]{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}. Added to this, on any necessary remarriage from death in childbirth, the king would have socially entrenched powers over his new spouse: [[coverture|financial]] and any rivalry of a new queen consort by her personal and companions' physical strength was within the [[chivalry|chivalric norm]] far-fetched so far as it might present a challenge to her ruling husband, if proving relatively able. Times of turbulence were more likely when a queen regnant/female main heir allowed to inherit was married to or remarried to a similar-status foreign leader, as was conventional for high-status women for their family security and diplomacy. Such a situation was a major source of civil wars; one example is the [[Spanish Armada]]. [[Henry VIII]] of England did not wait until death and remarried twice on the basis of lack of producing a male heir, on the second occasion beheading his queen "for witchcraft"{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}. A small minority of monarchs in many countries have openly made their heir [[Royal bastard|an illegitimate child]]; stories abound of others as newborns brought to the expectant queen consort such as to [[James II of England]] "in a bedpan."{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}} Under any of these considerations, sons, some of whose lives were in times of war likely to be lost in battle, could be expected to produce more heirs. Eldest daughters could find themselves under a situation of duress on remarriage, and the concept of the trophy bride if the husband were slain is one resonant in many cultures especially before the 20th century{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}.

In Japan, the Imperial chronologies include eight reigning empresses from ancient times up through the Edo period; however, their successors were most often selected from amongst the males of the paternal Imperial bloodline, which is why some conservative scholars argue that the women's reigns were temporary and that male-only succession tradition must be maintained.<ref>[http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070327i1.html "Life in the Cloudy Imperial Fishbowl"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100407011351/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070327i1.html |date=7 April 2010 }} ''Japan Times''. 27 March 2007.</ref> [[Japanese empresses]] such as [[Empress Genshō]] (680–748), who succeeded her mother the [[Empress Gemmei]] (661–721) on the throne (but only because she was a Princess of the Imperial family, daughter of [[Prince Kusakabe]]), remain the sole exceptions to this conventional argument.