为什么国王的妻子是王后，而女王的丈夫不是国王

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

为什么国王的妻子是王后，而女王的丈夫不是国王

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.

菲利普亲王的全名有133个单词，包括公爵、伯爵、男爵、皇家骑士，以及你能想到的几乎所有其他贵族头衔。但却唯独缺少那个最响亮、或许也是最明显的一个别名：国王。

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?

如果你看过《王冠》，或者花了很多时间阅读英国君主的书籍，你可能会知道，嫁给国王的女性被称为女王——最近的例子是伊丽莎白女王二世的母亲，她在她的丈夫继承王位后被称为伊丽莎白女王。专业术语是王后，意思是你通过婚姻获得了你的头衔。那么，为什么菲利普亲王在他的妻子加冕后没有成为菲利普国王（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.

据《读者文摘》报道，尽管议会法律在决定继承权时没有考虑性别因素，但在头衔的指定中确实考虑了性别因素。一般来说，妻子是其丈夫头衔的女性形式。这也就是当哈里王子被任命为萨塞克斯公爵时，梅根·马克尔成为了萨塞克斯公爵夫人的原因，也是如果威廉王子加冕成为国王，凯特·米德尔顿很可能成为凯瑟琳女王的原因。

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，丈夫不会自动与妻子的头衔相匹配，尤其是在涉及到在位君主的时候。正如《城镇与乡村》所解释的，“女王”仍然是一个象征性的头衔，但“国王”只能描述在位的君主。换句话说，queen这个词既可以表示“女性君主”，也可以表示“君主的妻子”，而king只能表示“君主”。这是历史上重男轻女的父系政府制度的残余规定（这也是在一副纸牌中，国王的排位高于女王的原因）。