Queen consort

A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king, and usually shares her spouse's social rank and status. She holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles and may be crowned and anointed, but historically she does not formally share the king's political and military powers, unless on occasion acting as regent.

In contrast, a queen regnant is a female monarch who rules suo jure (Latin for, "in her own right") and usually becomes queen by inheriting the throne upon the death of the previous monarch.

A queen dowager is a widowed queen consort, and a queen mother is a queen dowager who is the mother of the current monarch.

When a title other than king is held by the sovereign, his wife can be referred to by the feminine equivalent, such as princess consort or empress consort.

In monarchies where polygamy has been practised in the past (such as Morocco and Thailand), or is practised today (such as the Zulu nation and the various Yoruba polities), the number of the king's wives and their status vary. In Morocco, King Mohammed VI has broken with tradition and given his wife, Lalla Salma, the title of princess; prior to his reign, the Moroccan monarchy had no such title. In Thailand, the king and queen must both be of royal descent; his other consorts need not be royal before marriage to him but are accorded royal titles that confer status. A Zulu chieftain designates one of his wives as "Great Wife", an equivalent to queen consort.

The situation is more complex in Yorubaland. All of a chief's consorts are essentially of equal rank. Although one wife, usually the one married to the chief for the longest time, may be given a chieftaincy of her own to highlight her relatively higher status compared to the other wives, she does not share her husband's ritual power as a chieftain. When a woman is to be vested with an authority similar to that of the chief, she is usually a lady courtier in his service who, although not married to him, is expected to lead his female subjects on his behalf.

In the Ottoman Empire, haseki sultan (Ottoman Turkish: حاصكي سلطان; Ḫāṣekī Sulṭān; Turkish pronunciation: [haseˈci suɫˈtaːn]) was the title held by the lawful wife and imperial consort of the sultan. The title was first used in the 16th century by Hurrem Sultan, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, replacing the previous title of "Baş Kadın ("Head Lady"). The bearer of the title occupied the second most important position in the Ottoman Empire for a female after valide sultan (queen mother).

While the wife of a king is usually given the title of queen, there is much less consistency for the husband of a reigning queen. The title of king consort is rare. Examples are Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in Scotland and Francis, Duke of Cádiz, in Spain. Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme in Navarre and Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Portugal also gained the title. In Portugal, because of the practice of jure uxoris, both King Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha and his predecessor, King Pedro of Portugal, were treated as ruling kings in protocol and were thus symbolically co-rulers with their wives, but both really had only the same power of a consort and the queen was the real ruler.