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I'm writing a political system where women hold a higher rank in society than men. Almost immediately, I ran into an issue with the naming of locations.

Now, if a land ruled by a king is a kingdom, a land ruled by a queen can be a queendom. However, what are the equivalents for other titles? A duke rules a duchy, but what about a duchess? If I were to go Holy Roman Empire on this world and have a large variety of titles each with their own names for the ruled areas, I would need equivalent names of the locations. Since this world is explicitly matriarchal, male-by-default terms such as 'kingdom', 'duchy', and 'county' can't be utilized, so I'm wondering if there is a standard set of terms such as 'queendom' for other titles.

If none exists, I'll end up inventing my own set, but it would probably be preferable to follow existing conventions if they exist.

Please let me know if this is off topic for Worldbuilding SE. I don't believe it fits for Writing SE or SFF SE, so I'm posting here.

Andrew Fan
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    A duchy or a county is the land ruled by a duke or a duchess, respectively by a count (or earl, in Britain) or a countess. The words "duchy" and "county" by themselves are not "male" in any shape or form. (I don't even understand from where you would get such an idea.) There were quite a few famous duchesses and countesses who held their titles in their own right. (And, surprisingly perhaps, English does have the word "dukedom". The suffix -dom was quite productive before the 18th century.) – AlexP Sep 09 '19 at 06:38
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    Have you considered just ungendering the terms? King is the title of the ruler and queen is the spouse of the king no matter what gender each are. – John Meacham Sep 09 '19 at 08:45
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    Adding to @JohnMeacham's comments: During the 1380s, both King Jadwiga of Poland and King Mary of Hungary were female. (They were also sisters, daughters of Louis the Great, King of Hungary and Poland) – Chronocidal Sep 09 '19 at 08:56
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    The gender-neutral form of Kingdom is Monarchy. A King or Queen can both be termed monarchs. Maybe, when addressing the ruler, he or she can be titled "Mon" for short, and referred to as "My Mon" :-) – Klaus Æ. Mogensen Sep 09 '19 at 09:58
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    @KlausÆ.Mogensen: "Mon" means "my" anyway, so "my mon" would mean "my my". Monarch literally translates to "my chief". The gender neutral for kingdom would be realm, monarchy is a form of government – nzaman Sep 09 '19 at 13:23
  • It might fit the English Usage SE, though I agree it doesn't' fit the writing one. – April Salutes Monica C. Sep 09 '19 at 13:29
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    In the gender-positive language Hebrew, both a male sovereign (melekh) and female sovereign (malkah) rule over a malkhut. (Cite for these terms: Book of Esther.) Hence it seems to me that the setting could use a word for the country, and derive the terms for the female and male rulers from that. – Codes with Hammer Sep 09 '19 at 13:35
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    @nzaman "mon-" in monarch comes from Greek "monos" - one, sole. Monarch - sole ruler. It has nothing to do with French "mon" -"my". – Мікалас Кaрыбутоў Sep 09 '19 at 14:29
  • @AlexP Thank you for the notes on Duchy and County. I assumed they were specifically tied to the male title but I should have done more research on those specific terms. – Andrew Fan Sep 09 '19 at 14:31
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    @nzaman I'm not sure where you got that idea from; mon- or mono- means one, as in monologue, monaural, monarchy, monotheism. – Hearth Sep 09 '19 at 15:03
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    @nzaman In addition to what others mentioned about "mon" meaning one, 'monarchy' can be used to refer either to the system of government or to a nation or state having such a system of government. So, it's perfectly legitimate to say that a king or queen rules over a monarchy. – reirab Sep 09 '19 at 16:04
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    If you want to show that men holding positions of power are unusual, you could just use the current terms for everything, and when a man holds that, call it a "Male-"... I.e., "Most of the rulers are kings, but there's also a country that has a male king." – Ghedipunk Sep 09 '19 at 18:47
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    You realize that when the son inherits (because no daughters?), then the "Queendom" will need to reprint ALL OF THEIR LETTERHEAD AND ROAD SIGNS. Oh wait, its middle ages... nevermind. – Phil M Sep 09 '19 at 22:03
  • What about a made-up word like Feminarch or something? – A helpder Sep 09 '19 at 13:45
  • The etymology of "queen" is "wife", the implication giving primacy to the male. Why not try empress (ie. ruler of the imperium), As to the "Kingdom" - how about realm or imperium or even empire. Some basic research might have helped. – Escaped dental patient. Sep 10 '19 at 05:54
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    @KlausÆ.Mogensen So, would that make Aquaman, as ruler of Atlantis, Mon Calamari? – Chronocidal Sep 10 '19 at 08:32
  • Just call these cuntys or cuntries, that will show the ruler's gender. – Nyos Sep 10 '19 at 09:00
  • You can have a look at the Wheel of Time series, which does have some societal effects of putting women above men in importance. There's a number of good things you can mostly take from there. – Gloweye Sep 10 '19 at 10:26
  • @KlausÆ.Mogensen no, monarchy is the form/style of government practiced in a kingdom. The term kingdom is "gender neutral" anyway, so the whole question is pointless. – jwenting Sep 11 '19 at 05:17

5 Answers5

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The problem you're going to face is that the default gender of male has been enshrined into our language for so long that most of the terms we use to describe a female version of something is an extension of the male form.

Even the term Woman allegedly comes from a compounding of terms in Old English and more or less means 'Wife - human', or female human1. Female actors used to be called actresses, 'ess' being a common way of denoting that the person, vocation or rank in question is the female version.

If you want to change the structure to a matriarchy by default, the best way to do that is with a con-lang (constructed language) that starts out with a default term for a woman, then comes up with common variations for the male version of it. Let's say that for a male, we add a suffix like 'ire' for the male specific version. Then your duchy can stay as is, your Duke is likely the woman, and the 'Duchire' would be the man.

Baronire. Actire. Seamstire. The list could go on.

You could use Queendom by default and that makes a bit of sense as the terms sound far enough apart that Queen doesn't appear to be a derivation of the word King (although there is bound to be a link in their etymology) but the important thing is that if you want your world to consider women to be the default gender and men the partners or holders of a position when there is no suitable woman to hold the role, you're actually best restructuring your language to suit the problem. That way, the prejudice is baked into the semantic structure of your language.

1. Thanks to AlexP for additional information on this, including the previous prefix that fell into disuse - were, like in Werewolf. This could be used to deliver terms like Man (being default woman) and wereman as the male version.
ANeves
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Tim B II
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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – L.Dutch Sep 10 '19 at 13:33
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    "queen" comes from an ancient Germanic word meaning "woman". Not related to "king" at all. – CJ Dennis Sep 10 '19 at 14:50
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    I am quite sure that "actress" is still a common term. Saying female actors "used to be called actresses" is just wrong. Some people in some circles might be trending toward using "actor" for both genders, but "actress" has by no means become archaic... – user91988 Sep 10 '19 at 16:25
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    Also worth noting, the tendency of a noun to have an assumed gender isn't the same across the entire language. "Widow" for example is assumed female, with the male equivalent having the extra affix in "widower". This is because men die young more often so it's much more likely for there to be a woman whose husband died, than a man whose wife died. So it's not about "Who's in power?" as much as "Is this noun more often male or female?" which determines the assumed gender. – Maddock Emerson Sep 11 '19 at 12:00
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    Given that the question was about people in power, then the question is still relevantly "who's in power?" – Benjamin Wandio Sep 11 '19 at 12:26
  • @MaddockEmerson But then we have to reconcile with the fact that language is not inherently sexist, which isn't a popular opinion today. –  Sep 11 '19 at 17:28
  • Actually "king" means offspringof a family, and "queen" means woman. At their roots. No link. – Mary Jul 15 '21 at 12:22
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Women can be kings too. The first thing that came to mind when I read this question was King Jadwiga of Poland, who was, in fact, a woman. I googled the etymology of king and it seems that the root words of king don't have anything to do with being male, so you don't need to worry about changing the word to something gender-neutral. So your female leaders can be called kings, and their lands can be called their kingdoms. However, you should consider that this may confuse some readers (or viewers or players or whatever else you have).

Levi C. Olson
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    I think it was Patricia C Wrede who first introduced me to this concept. She had a female dragon about to become King and the "captive" princess (totally hiding out from all the lousy princes) asked her early on in the novel "wouldn't that make you queen?" and the dragon snorted in disgust and replied along the lines of she "wanted to lead, to have the Kings role. Why would she want the supporting Queens role?! ". As long as you address the issue in a clear and memorable way, your readers still won't be confused decades after they put your story down! – EveryBitHelps Sep 09 '19 at 09:26
  • I upvoted this because it is true; but I think you're right that it will cause confusion since the word 'King' has become heavily gendered and also that this is a very good reason not to do it. – Jack Aidley Sep 09 '19 at 11:11
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    Reminds me of the Fate animé series, where King Arthur is a girl. – The Square-Cube Law Sep 09 '19 at 12:25
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    Looking into this further, it seems King Jadwiga was referred to as Queen (well, the Polish word of equivalent meaning) in her own lifetime and only coronated as King. – Jack Aidley Sep 09 '19 at 14:00
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    @JackAidley Well my main resource was Sid Meier's Civilization VI :p – Levi C. Olson Sep 09 '19 at 20:41
  • @DJSpicyDeluxe To be fair, that's where I know it from too! – Jack Aidley Sep 10 '19 at 08:21
  • @JackAidley Story of Jadwiga goes like this: Polish King Kazimierz Wielki died without heir. His nephew, Ludwik Węgierski, king of Hungary, became new king of Poland. After Ludwik's death, one of his daughters became king of Hungary. Another became king of Poland, at age of ~11 BTW. There was no regency, but rule was still held by someone else: nobility from region of Małopolska. At age of ~12 she was married to Władysław Jagiełło (~22 at the time), Grand Duke of Lithuania, who thus became King of Poland. At age of ~25 Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter, both of them died about 3 weeks later. – M i ech Sep 10 '19 at 11:43
  • Jadwiga was coronated as king of Poland, and neither calling her King nor Queen would be incorrect. However, her influence on politics was limited, initially by age, later by not being King any more and is more consistent with role of Queen. She became important symbol not because she was good ruler, but because of what today we would call charity: founding construction of churches, funding monasteries and hospitals, she funded translation of Book of Psalms, requesting Pope's permission to create theology faculty at University in Kraków, convincing king to restore said University, etc. – M i ech Sep 10 '19 at 11:52
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    As you might imagine, Church loved her. After all, Catholic Church is pretty much the archetypal supranational corporation, craving money, influence, power and claiming to be above any local laws, they also want to have their franchised locations everywhere (they certainly do in Poland). They loved her so much that they tried to make her a Saint 30 years after her death. Vatican disagreed, though and it wasn't until Pole became Pope (John Paul II), that canonisation was finally successfully pushed through. – M i ech Sep 10 '19 at 12:05
  • "I googled the etymology of king and it seems that the root words of king don't have anything to do with being male". The root of virtually all our gendered words have nothing to do with any gender. –  Sep 11 '19 at 17:29
  • So the situation with King Jadwiga was one that was a quirk of the polish Language. Their word for "Queen" means exclusively "Queen Consort" aka the woman who married a regent of King rank. In English, the word "Queen" means both a "Queen Regent" and "Queen Consort" and is used for both Queen by birthright and queen by marriage. In Polish, "King" was the person who inherited the Throne and had no relation to her sex. If I recall, she was put in as a compromise to avoid a succession crisis and was surprisingly competent and popular during her reign. – hszmv Jul 15 '21 at 12:34
  • A similar situation occured in Ancient Egypt. The word "Pharaoh" is not male exclusive term and there have been several female Pharaohs (Hatshepsut and Cleopatra being two famous female Pharaohs). The only thing they did was draw the female Pharaohs with a stylized goatee and make her wear a false one in public, but for the Egyptians, the facial hair was an artistic symbol of the Pharaoh. It's like drawing Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Saints with halos or in India drawling human gods/goddesses with blue skin. And a final note. Husband to a ruling Queen is called Prince Consort. Not King – hszmv Jul 15 '21 at 12:42
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A gender neutral term for a kingdom is Realm.

Another even more general word is Domain

A borders of a realm or kingdom are defined as the land ruled by a king/queen. It is quite unusual for the definition to work this way, with the person defining the domain. In other cases, the borders of the land are defined independently of the person ruling them. Thus a king would normally define an area of land such as a county/barony/duchy and give it to an ally, making the person a count, baron or duke/duchess. In the case of empires, the empire is normally named after the conquering territory (British empire, Roman empire) with the occupied territories retaining their own names.

As noted by Tim B County and Duchy have no significant gender bias. Nor does Empire. Patriarchal tradition is shown in the fact that the neutral sounding Emperor and Count are understood to be male (unless modified with an -ess ending.) In a matriarchical society, it would make sense for the female rulers of a county, barony or empire to be counts, barons or emperors.

Duchess is closer to Duchy than Duke is, and the odd inflection makes the word Duke sound definitely male, so I would avoid this term.

I would note however, that there is nothing to stop you inventing your own names for rulers or territories, for which you can invent your own grammar. For a particularly silly example see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_Game . This featured a (male) ruler called the Rangdo (ficticious title) of Arg (ficticious territory) who was a shapeshifter, who normally appeared in the form of a very angry houseplant.

Level River St
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  • Of interesting note, in many places ruled by Britain in the Victorian era, a very common name or name fragment for pubs is "The Empress" - with the titular empress invariably being Victoria. Empire is a very good candidate to replace "kingdom" – Miller86 Sep 10 '19 at 08:27
  • I LOOKED UP 'gender neutral word for kingdom' ON GOOGLE AND FOUND THIS AS FIRST RESULT. THIS EXPLAINS GAME OF THRONES/A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE SO MUCH. (of course 'realm' refers to the empire or whatever westeros is rather than the individual realms/kingdoms/queendoms there) – BCLC Aug 05 '20 at 14:45
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a land ruled by a queen can be a queendom

That is not true. The United Kingdom considers the Queen to be head of state but it is still called a kingdom.

Consider the idea of having a female 'king' or male 'queen'. These terms do not have to be gender specific. A 'duchess' can refer to a duke's spouse rather than specifically a female entity.

As others suggested, you can construct your own terminology too.

Ninja Master
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  • We expect answers to actually answer the question. To criticize the question, please use comments. – L.Dutch Sep 11 '19 at 10:02
  • Welcome to the site, Ninja Master! You may want to double check the English language before you criticize someone for using an unfamiliar word like queendom; the OP has used it correctly. On the flip side, a duchess is defined as the wife or widow of a duke, who is in turn a sovereign male ruler of a duchy. Because of the inaccuracies in this answer, I'm agreeing with the delete vote this post has garnered. – Frostfyre Sep 11 '19 at 12:39
  • Frostfyre, I did not mean to criticize the word 'queendom' itself but rather point out that the word kingdom can be used in a gender neutral sense. The reason I chose to push this an answer instead of a comment is because I suggest a gender neutral use of existing words as the solution as an option. Let me know if my answer is still inappropriate or needs elongation. – Ninja Master Sep 11 '19 at 13:40
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Altthouh the word kingdom can be used for male or female, I would prefer a word queendom for a queen and kingdom for a king. The English language is a progressive one and new words can be created. So, queedom for me.!

L.Dutch
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Christophine
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