I feel the pressure on them to produce an heir will be enormous, so fairly soon. Sure, there are other heirs hanging about, but the family and public will want one descending specifically from Wills and Kate. I doubt they’d settle for anthing less.
What if there were infertility issues? The timing isn’t necessarily 100% up to them, you know. Not that I’m aware of any reason to expect that, but it’s not impossible.
That’s an interesting point, and one that will certainly be brought up if they don’t have a kid in the next couple of years. I’m now amused by the thought of the Daily Mail becoming hysterical if she conceives with donated sperm!
If it happens, we’ll do what we always do when there’s a constitutional issue, and make it up as we go along. Most likely is that we’ll start training Harry up as a spare.
I don’t think that’s the word you meant to pick. 
(Though it makes an interesting mental picture.)
I wonder what the constitution implications of surrogacy (using Will’s sperm & Kate’s egg) would be? After all that is the one part of childraising that royalty has never passed on the servants.
Yeah, you’re so sensitive about “sexist” language…
They had better produce a sprog, or I’m never voting for them again.
You are right, and it is an interesting word to pick. Abdication, abduction. (Spell checker helping me when I’m not paying attention).
Adopted children do not qualify to inherit titles (there has been talk of that changing). I don’t think fertility treatments would be out of the question however. And, as said upthread, it isn’t like there aren’t other heirs. This isn’t Queen Anne.
I think she’ll be pregnant within a year. They’ve known each other for ages, so they don’t need any extended getting-to-know you timeframe and it’s not as if she has to work for a few years so they can afford a deposit on a house of their own.
They’ve said they want kids in about a year.
That’s a joke I hope. Right?
Or perhaps Royal sperm and royal eggs don’t function the same as those of commoners:D
Eh??
Anyway, 12 July 2012. That’s how long.
This sitehas the odds of the 1st baby occurring in:
2012 5/4
2013 15/8
2014 5/1
2015 or later 9/2
so pretty much, bookmakers are saying that she will drop an heir next year (even money).
Um, are we seriously witnessing someone being pedantic about how anachronistic and sexist it is for the wife of an heir to the fucking British throne to be expected to produce children?
You’re talking about an ancient institution that is akin to a living dinosaur in our world of today. Everything about the monarchy is anachronistic, and I speculate the only reason it has continued as long as it has is British sense of tradition and also because it would require substantial changes to the British system of government to do away with the monarchy. (Everyone always says it’d be a simple act of Parliament, but the truth is the sovereign holds immense power. Never exercised because it isn’t politically feasible, but something has to be done with all those never used powers. Do they go to the Prime Minister? Do they go to an elected Head of State? If so, what would stop the elected Head of State from using them? An elected Head of State would have the political legitimacy to use their powers that the Queen does not. I don’t think these are unsolvable problems, but they are messy enough that I think it’s a good part of the reason the system is still going on.)
And as for sexist? Really? You’re concerned a system that practices cognatic primogeniture is sexist? If William had 10 older sisters he would still inherit the throne over them…talk about sexist.
As for the more mundane “ordinary husband and wife” aspects of it, in an ordinary marriage if the husband’s family was extremely desirous of children and the husband chose to honor the expectations of his family and he discussed this with his betrothed and she was fine with it and also agreed to honor it I do not think it would be unreasonable for the husband to expect her to maintain her word. If she didn’t, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the husband to divorce her.
Should a family care about whether a son has children? In the normal world, no, that should be up to the son. However can they care? Absolutely, and who is to stop them? Is it a fair expectation? Absolutely not, but again, who can stop one’s family from having expectations? Should the son heed those expectations against his own desires? No. But again, who can stop him? Many people all over the world do things they do not wish to do because of the expectations of their family. Is it fair? No, but life isn’t fair.
I genuinely think that William has never seriously considered not having children. Royals in the UK are pounded about their duties and responsibilities from a very young age, I think that he’s probably long ago had any thoughts of not living up to those responsibilities systematically removed through his upbringing.
I also suspect that William and Kate have probably been looked at by physicians to see whether or not they may have any problems conceiving. I wouldn’t be shocked at all if that has genuinely happened. If they found out William was unable to have children I suspect Harry would quietly be pressured to marry and have children, and I suspect the Royal family would keep William’s infertility secret and that he would even marry and make all outward appearances of everything being normal. We wouldn’t know any different until years down the road when married William still had no children and Harry was married with 4-5 kids.
And also, if he really didn’t want to be a father, that shouldn’t make much difference. Wouldn’t just handing the little sucker off to the nanny and dropping back by in 18 or 20 years for a quick handshake be possible, if such were his wont?
I don’t know about Diogenes, but my wife and I talked about kids, etc, before we got married - maybe we went about it the wrong way, but I thought that finding shit like that out about the other partner is part of the process of finding out whether you should get married… isn’t it?
I imagine the conversation went something like this:
“Catherine, you do understand that by marrying me you will be expected to immediately have children, with 2 or more being better? And that you’d better have a son, or you’re going to have to keep pumping out kids until you give Britain a male heir? And you won’t have a career except that of being my wife and an Ambassador of Britain?”
“No shit Sherlock - you’re the future King of England! I knew this when I decided to pursue you, idiot. It’s not like I’m some Yank who doesn’t understand how things operate over here.”
Why is everybody so sure that William gives a fuck about those expectations? Maybe she said she didn’t want kids and he married her anyway because he loves her. Is that not possible? can there not be any human element to this relationship? Is she just breeding stock and nothing else?
Possible, but I don’t think very probable. She’s given every indication of wanting to be a right royal queen upholding all the traditions that entails, one of them being popping out a future heir. If she did not want children, I’d be surprised if the relationship would have gotten this far.
And anyway, didn’t someone say thay already said they wanted children soon?