Michael Y. Medvedev;77390 wrote:

Dear Alexander, here I would disagree. It is quite useful in British Royal heraldry and in the very same way it either is or may be useful in other areas. A brisure, apart of mere demonstration of the non-chiefly status, is (or may be) a very effective and relevant personalisation factor, and, last but not least, a family branch marker.

I agree with Alexander, in that you have to "rebalance" the cadency marks in the English system within a generation. And it really only works to difference between each member of the same generation; after a while, if you have a bunch of arms differenced by a crescent, what does that really tell you?

The Scots system is far more preferable for determining lineage than any other. So my suggestion to Charles is to explore some difference in that respect.

Hugh Brady;77393 wrote:

[...]you have to "rebalance" the cadency marks in the English system within a generation. [...]

But I did not appeal to the English system, dear Hugh. I mentioned Royal cadency which is individualising, and suggested a free choise of an element which may be used as a brisure.

Hugh Brady;77392 wrote:

I know this is the official reason put out by the CHA, but I really do wonder if indeed this is true and if they received advice from a responsible law officer before making this statement.  That is, I don’t think that the Canadian Charter of Rights necessarily means that there can be no distinction between the sexes but that there can’t be discrimination between the sexes. For example, if the CHA held that a woman couldn’t bear her paternal arms after marriage, while sons were free to do so, that would be discrimination based on sex. But to say that sons must bear differences while women are not required to bear differences doesn’t necessarily discriminate against the woman, who has the right to bear the undifferenced arms.

I never quite understood that ration much, considering the male-preferred role that heraldry takes.  But I figure in due time there will be a strict primogeniture rule rather than a male-preferred one in Canada.

One of the Nordic countries changed to strict primogeniture, did they not?

Simply seems to be the march of time.  Soon enough we will have "family crests" and everything.

Dear Alexander, it all does not happen automatically.

As Chesterton remarked (approximately), to appeal to the idea of progress is senseless as progress is just what is going on. We have certain chances IMHO to participate in forming modern heraldry in accordance with our views, instead of leaving it to those impostors who claim the exclusive right to represent the modern culture (and whose narrow-minded simplificationism is long obsolete).

As I understand it, there is a strict equality rule in Canada.  Daughters inherit and transmit arms equally with sons.  This provision for female armorial inheritance and transmission is supposedly why Lyon Office won’t matriculate Canadian-granted arms—because of the prospect that the arms will become separated from the surname.

It’s also the reason why there’s a set of cadency marks for daughters, although if both inherit equally there’s no reason to differentiate the daughters from the sons.  One could equally well just use the old marks for sons to designate first child, second child, and so on.

Assuming of course that there’s any reason to difference at all in most cases.

Joseph McMillan;77399 wrote:

One could equally well just use the old marks for sons to designate first child, second child, and so on.

And this is possible in Canada as well. In suggesting distinctive female brisures, Canadian heralds did not imply their absolute necessity but simply met some clients’ wishes and expectations.

It is like a female name. One is free to give one’s daughter any "male" name (like, say, Ms John George Jones-Smith, sounds nice, doesn’t it?) or a "neutral" one (like Ms Onion Jones-Smith) but there is nothing wrong in giving her a girlish name, too.

And vice versa; I am sure that if this would be strongly and understandingly requested by the applying family, the Authority would assign a "female" brisure to a boy. If this may be meaningful for the client, why not then?

<div class=“bbcode_right” >
This may be loosely compared to admission of a boy, one Prince Alexander Menshikov Jr, into the Ladies’ Order of St Catherine in 1720-ies.

[ see please http://the.heraldry.ru/text/stcatherine.html ]

He was deemed by the Empress to have so gentle a heart to be eligible for a purely female honour

Please pardon my late entry into this discussion.

It seems to me that all systems of "differencing" create the same mess generations downline, and since arms are inherited for those generations, good designs can be lost in multiple cadency marks, whether it is sons or daughters.

What makes sense to me, in view of the growing preferences for "strict primogeniture" over "eldest male" (several monarchies have changed their rules on inheritance this past half century), is a "differencing" by a change of tincture or charge, leading to "branch arms" for families blessed with more than one or two children.

The alternative, it seems to me, is to adopt a system similar to the Polish arms, where the undifferenced arms may be born by many related families regardless of specific name, if I have correctly understood George Lucki’s attempts to convince some of us at the IAAH that loyalty to one or other UK system is not the only way to inherit arms.  Having five sons, two daughters, fifteen grand-children and three great-grand-children, I am becoming more interested in such a system.  Denny MacGoff may be able to explain the Irish system which I believe also does not use "cadency" today.

The bottom line is that, in the US, you can do almost anything you want and no one can stop you although there will be lots to criticise whatever decision you eventually make.  What does your daughter want to do?  That may be the most important question.

Doug Welsh;77574 wrote:

What does your daughter want to do?

Good dad’s business is to advise, maybe even passionately, but not to force!

The problem with introducing differences (rather than cadency marks) to distinguish different branches is that it only works in retrospect. Which of the younger children (or grandchildren) is going to constitute a branch? Only time can tell.

And let’s not forget the demographics in all this. Back when these systems were introduced, societies were accustomed to high infant mortality and high rates of celibacy. Large families were definitely the exception. When a couple had multiple sons (and hence the question of cadency imposed itself) it was by no means a given that more than one of them would marry and continue a separate line.

In my observation of Low Country noble families until say 1750 (when demographic patterns start to change), younger sons would only be allowed to marry if they found an heiress or if the mother had been an heiress herself. In that case, quartering was the most appropriate way of making the difference. The eldest son would retain the unbroken arms, while the younger son would acknowledge his debt by either quartering or even accepting a "name and arms" clause in the prenup which meant that his children would bear their mother’s name and arms.

What made the established systems of cadency totally impracticable was:

1. the decline of infant mortality (and let’s be grateful for that)

2. the decline in (forced) celibacy because younger sons stood an increasingly good chance of acquiring sufficient means to sustain a family in a diversifying economy (meaning an economy that became less and less dependent on owning land to guarantee survival).

These ruminations may seem to lead us a long way from the delights of heraldry, but I do think that they ought to inspire us to rethink the entire notion of cadency and bring it in line with today’s demographics (as well as with civil law). Lower infant mortality and distinctly higher rates of nuptiality are only part of the picture. While we are at it, let’s not forget:

1. lower birth rates (leading to families of on average three here in the US and two in Europe)

2. the impact of reconstituted families

3. single mothers with children bearing their names

4. the greater importance of adoption.

Some of these features may not accord with prevailing moral values, but that is with all due respect not the point. After all, most of us will probably (or rather hopefully) agree that the main reason why daughters in the past did not have to use marks of cadency (namely that they were not going to inherit any property anyway) does not exactly square with present day values either.

lucduerloo;77580 wrote:

After all, most of us will probably (or rather hopefully) agree that the main reason why daughters in the past did not have to use marks of cadency (namely that they were not going to inherit any property anyway) does not exactly square with present day values either.

Thanks God, you’ve said that

My daughter and I agreed to difference my arms for her until she reachers majority, at which point she may continue the difference during my lifetime and bear my arms afterward, choose a whole new design, or something else.

Joseph

Joseph Staub;77589 wrote:

My daughter and I agreed to difference my arms for her until she reachers majority, at which point she may continue the difference during my lifetime and bear my arms afterward, choose a whole new design, or something else.

Joseph

In what manner did y’all decide to difference her arms from yours?

She’s still pondering her options! I left it up to her, with a dad-veto possible in an extreme situation, such as putting Jacob from "Twilight" on it.

Brilliant! Personally, I believe this all to be true good armory.