Prince Harry's marrying Meghan Markle

[Hydra009]

I don't really care a rat's ass about British royalty.  As far as I care, they could quit the job and nobody would really care.

BUT!  I read a sci-fi book once where the new king (or queen) was required to marry a commoner to keep the DNA viable (so to speak), and I thought that was a great idea.  If you HAVE to have a monarchy, it is better to not inbreed them.  That way lies literal madness.

That's pretty much the plot of Game of Thrones, lol.  It's strange that purebred sounds desirable and inbred sounds undesirable when both words describe the exact same thing.

[Baruch]

I don't really care a rat's ass about British royalty.  As far as I care, they could quit the job and nobody would really care.

BUT!  I read a sci-fi book once where the new king (or queen) was required to marry a commoner to keep the DNA viable (so to speak), and I thought that was a great idea.  If you HAVE to have a monarchy, it is better to not inbreed them.  That way lies literal madness.

Look up Leopold the Hogmouth, not a pretty face.

[Cavebear]

That's pretty much the plot of Game of Thrones, lol.  It's strange that purebred sounds desirable and inbred sounds undesirable when both words describe the exact same thing.

Inbreeding is great if you can stand the the unavoidable lunatics and physically deformed.  Some cultures have just left them on hillsides to die.  Royalty can't.  Bloodlines matter and you can be as mad as the mercury-soaked hatter and still be king if the line gets you to the top.  But even then, most of them manage to die conveniently (koff, koff).

We do that with dogs and cats and cattle, but eliminating the bad results is not a social problem.  We just toss them into the sausage factory.