Joseph McMillan;104888 wrote:

Illustration:  before the Obergefell decision this summer, if two Swedish women who had been married in their home country had moved to, say, Kentucky, they would not have been recognized as married, could not have held property as tenants by the entirety, etc.  Were they married or weren’t they?  In Sweden they were, in Kentucky they were not.

I don’t think that’s quite capturing it, but perhaps we can spare ourselves an ontological discussion. Whatever rights Kentucky may withhold from these women, would anyone in his right mind counsel that they not wear wedding rings that reflect their status under Swedish law when they are in Kentucky? If not, then why would anyone forbid an armiger’s wearing a signet ring that reflects his status under British (etc.) law when he’s in the U.S.?

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Actually, U.S. law "gets" dual citizenship in precisely the same way I’m suggesting we need to understand the concept of nobility outside its country of origin.  It is not illegal to be a dual citizen, but the foreign citizenship is of zero legal and practical consequence within the United States.  A dual citizen’s rights and responsibilities in the United States are the same as any other citizen’s.  In the U.S. context, he is not a French, British, or Israeli citizen; he is an American citizen.

He doesn’t get to opt out of being subject to American law when he’s on U.S. soil, but since he gets to exercise prerogatives of his other citizenship—in the case of voting by absentee ballot, for example, while he is physically here—I don’t see at all how his other citizenship becomes non-existent just because he came across the border.

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As for whether American culture "gets" dual citizenship, by which I take it that Fred means that the consensus of Americans is comfortable with or indifferent to multiple citizenship, I am strongly disposed to doubt it.  Understanding this subject requires a level of sophistication that seems wholly inconsistent with what we know of public opinion on the immigration question.

Things like Celtic festivals suggest very strongly to me that average Americans get dual loyalties well enough to get dual citizenship, too. No one escapes high school these days without reading a "between two worlds" memoir or two.

Wilfred Leblanc;104894 wrote:

I see no evidence of an "overwhelming" belief to this effect.

Hence the first word of the sentence.

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A not uncommon misconception, sure, but an overwhelming belief, no,

You don’t know this to be a fact any more than I know the opposite.

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...and the sense I get is that rubes who go for bucket shop arms tend very often to find out in short order that they’ve been misled.

I know people who are far from being rubes who prominently display what we would dismiss as "bucket shop" arms in their houses.  One family is of Irish extraction and has a print of the standard, in all the books, arms of their name.  Another are cousins of mine who have a similar print of arms belonging to someone of their name, even though they have a perfectly provable pedigree in the male line back to a prominent early settler of Massachusetts Bay who bore entirely different arms.

I’m tempted to tease out the basis for your "sense" that these "rubes" soon find out they’ve been misled, but that’s yet another red herring.  Whether they’ve been misled or not, whether they find out or not, is beside the point.  You tell us that people who use arms are making an "objective assertion of high social status."  I don’t see how this generalization can be objectively true if even a significant (less than overwhelming) proportion of the people who display arms have been, to use your term, misled about what they mean.

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Meanwhile, American heraldry does not exist in a vacuum. The history of heraldry remains what it is, and the norms of the rest of the heraldic world remain what they are. This is not to assert that there’s no room for variation and change, but the idea that an American’s coat of arms makes no objective assertion of high social status is not tenable.

See separate response.

Quick note re: not existing in a vacuum - obviously.  But what fills the vacuum?

Fred refers to other heraldic traditions, which is part of the mix; but in any country, by far the most important part of the context is the laws, customs and practices that particular country, which will have shaped their heraldry in ways that may differ in varying degrees from that of their neighbors.  Heraldry in, say, Spain, resembles in some ways but differs in others from that of Portugal or Germany or Poland or Scotland; just as the laws, customs, diet, music, traditional costumes, language,architecture ad nauseum of each nation or region differ from each other.  Heraldry in any culture is no different; it is, just like all these other matters, merely a subset of the history, political and social norms of that culture.

Where heraldry between several nations are similar, it merely reflects broader similarities; and where heraldry differs, it likewise merely reflects broader differences.  There simply is no one universal standard practice of heraldry that trumps national heraldic practices; rather, the broader national norms trump anything inconsistent with those norms, in heraldry as in everything else.

Quick note re: not existing in a vacuum - obviously.  But what fills the vacuum?

Fred refers to other heraldic traditions, which is part of the mix; but in any country, by far the most important part of the context is the laws, customs and practices that particular country, which will have shaped their heraldry in ways that may differ in varying degrees from that of their neighbors.  Heraldry in, say, Spain, resembles in some ways but differs in others from that of Portugal or Germany or Poland or Scotland; just as the laws, customs, diet, music, traditional costumes, language,architecture ad nauseum of each nation or region differ from each other.  Heraldry in any culture is no different; it is, just like all these others matters, merely a subset of the history, political and social norms of that culture.

Where heraldry between several nations are similar, it merely reflects broader similarities; and where heraldry differs, it likewise merely reflects broader differences.  There simply is no one universal standard practice of heraldry that trumps national heraldic practices; rather, the broader national norms trump anything inconsistent with those norms, in heraldry as in everything else.

Wilfred Leblanc;104896 wrote:

Whatever rights Kentucky may withhold from these women, would anyone in his right mind counsel that they not wear wedding rings that reflect their status under Swedish law when they are in Kentucky? If not, then why would anyone forbid an armiger’s wearing a signet ring that reflects his status under British (etc.) law when he’s in the U.S.?

This.

As regards nobiliary entitlements, the US resident peer isn’t asserting any rights under US law.  He is simply depicting a reality in his arms that transcends our national boundaries.

We wouldn’t ask that an Anglican minister take off his dog collar when he steps on US soil.  We wouldn’t ask a bishop to remove his bishop’s ring when he wanders outside his diocese.  Why would we ask an English or Scottish peer to do as much?

Wilfred Leblanc;104894 wrote:

. . . but the idea that an American’s coat of arms makes no objective assertion of high social status is not tenable.

Preemptively, I just want to add (as I probably did when we had this debate four or five years ago) that the rhetorical effectiveness of the heraldic display is immaterial to the essence of the assertion it makes. In other words, a tattoo on someone’s calf (arguably a naive approach) and a signet ring (arguably a more sophisticated approach) are saying about the same thing—"I belong to a distinguished family and that makes me a bit better than people who don’t"—regardless of whether one strategy is more likely than the other to make that argument convincing.

David Pope;104904 wrote:

This.

As regards nobiliary entitlements, the US resident peer isn’t asserting any rights under US law.  He is simply depicting a reality in his arms that transcends our national boundaries.

But it is not a reality that transcends national boundaries.  There’s no such thing as transnational nobility.

As for wandering onto alien territory, that’s not and never has been the issue.  It’s not a question of how a British peer visiting the United States should behave in armorial terms but how an American who would be a peer if he were in the UK should behave on his native turf.

In any case, the U.S. has no public policy against the existence of clergy within our society.  It does have a public policy against the existence of nobility.

Wilfred Leblanc;104905 wrote:

Preemptively, I just want to add (as I probably did when we had this debate four or five years ago) that the rhetorical effectiveness of the heraldic display is immaterial to the essence of the assertion it makes. In other words, a tattoo on someone’s calf (arguably a naive approach) and a signet ring (arguably a more sophisticated approach) are saying about the same thing—"I belong to a distinguished family and that makes me a bit better than people who don’t"—regardless of whether one strategy is more likely than the other to make that argument convincing.

And I probably also said four or five years ago that:

(a) Saying "I am proud to belong to my family" is not the same as calling my family distinguished.  "Distinguished" is an enormously inflated characterization of the typical arms-bearing family, no matter where it comes from.

(b) Even if the family is distinguished, a person’s membership in that family or even his display of the family’s arms does not imply that he is or thinks that he is even the slightest bit better than anyone else.  And in this country, at least, it never did.  In an 8 1/2 mile stretch along the James River are three early 18th century plantation houses occupied by three of the grandest families in Virginia history:  Shirley, Berkeley, and Westover.  No one ever would have dreamt that having coats of arms made the Carters of Shirley and the Byrds of Westover one whit better than the Harrisons of Berkeley, who didn’t.

Even in England, a family didn’t have to be particularly distinguished to have a coat of arms.  One chap, a glove-maker by trade, qualified for a grant of arms by virtue of being an alderman in a town of some 2,000 souls.  And while John Shakespeare’s case is well-known because of who his son was, it was far from unique in 16th-17th century England, when the notion that arms were the distinctive mark of "gentlemen" was all the rage.

I don’t dispute that in that period the bearing of arms was an assertion of some kind of status.  But the notion that the status it asserted was enormously elevated does not stand up to scrutiny.

Joseph McMillan;104910 wrote:

There’s no such thing as transnational nobility.

But there is such a thing as multinational identity, and in various ways, our society indulges that. An American who inherits an English peerage is not clearly asserting a right to sit in a House of Lords that we have never had simply by virtue of his wearing a signet ring or using armorial stationery. He is clearly expressing pride in his ancestry and pride in his status as a nobleman in England—pride in his traditional right to sit in the House of Lords there—but that’s different.

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It does have a public policy against the existence of nobility.

How so? Obviously, the only legal status in the U.S. is that of citizen, but even the legality of Americans’ inheriting peerages suffices to show that we have no public policy against the very existence of nobility.

Joseph McMillan;104911 wrote:

(a) Saying "I am proud to belong to my family" is not the same as calling my family distinguished.  "Distinguished" is an enormously inflated characterization of the typical arms-bearing family, no matter where it comes from.

Saying you are proud to belong to your family presupposes a favorable comparison to other families.

Insofar as there are varied degrees and types of distinction (local, regional, national, international, military, civilian, etc.), "distinguished" does not have the limited meaning you’re imputing to it, and I think it’s clear enough that that limited meaning is not the one I intend.

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(b) No one ever would have dreamt that having coats of arms made the Carters of Shirley and the Byrds of Westover one whit better than the Harrisons of Berkeley, who didn’t.

No one? How about George Washington? What does having a coat of arms seem to have meant to him?

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Even in England, a family didn’t have to be particularly distinguished to have a coat of arms.  One chap, a glove-maker by trade, qualified for a grant of arms by virtue of being an alderman in a town of some 2,000 souls.  And while John Shakespeare’s case is well-known because of who his son was, it was far from unique in 16th-17th century England, when the notion that arms were the distinctive mark of "gentlemen" was all the rage.

Then we agree that arms are the mark of a gentleman in a world where being a gentleman is a restricted and desirable distinction. Can we not agree that bearing arms implies identification with such a world? And, more narrowly, identification with a restricted group in that world?

Seems to me we’re getting off track here.

AFAIK Gentleman was a term with a particular legal meaning in England during our colonial period (though the precise meaning had evolved over time, and apparently is still evolving - there was a lengthy thread on this forum recently which explored the term).  I suppose that term still has meaning and some relevance in English heraldic practice.

AFAIK that term has little or no legal meaning in this country; at best, it’s a polite social term for addressing or referring to males whose behavior and deportment meet some vague but not all that high a standard (not rude and not currently incarcerated), and as one of several terms for which bathroom to use.

Heraldically, gentleman has no other or higher meaning here.  Bearing arms, for better or worse, neither implies, confers nor confirms that one is a Gentleman, whatever one might think or wish that term to mean, any more than a drivers license or voter registration or solicitation for a magazine subscription.

We’ve argued here whether there should be any limitation on who should or shouldn’t use arms.  I’ve argued that it should be anyone in good standing legally eligible to exercise the rights of citizenship - basically not a felon.  Some wouldn’t deny arms to a convicted felon serving time.  (Note that we’re talking "should" and "best practices" since there is no legal bar.)  Only a few have argued for a higher bar similar to what the English heralds claim to require, and those arguments haven’t gained much if any traction.

Chasing squirrels over whether some folks may think of themselves or their families as somehow better than the common horde strikes me as a waste of time in this context.  Of course some do; some are, and some would just like to think they are.  But thinking that adopting or using arms is inescapably tied to perceptions of self or familial worth seems silly when the only criteria is that you’re not serving time - or maybe you are.  Wow! - what could be more exalted than that?

If a particular coat of arms conveys distinction (esteem) or disgust, it is only a reflection of the esteem or contempt in which the bearers are held.  The only intrinsic esteem conveyed by the arms is the quality of the artwork and what that might say about one’s artistic talent or appreciation, no different than your choice of artwork on your wall or of your wallpaper.  The only intrinsic heraldic "distinction" is between your family and other unrelated folk with the same surname - the same sense (meaning) of "distinction" as between two varieties of apples, or between several shades of red.

Hi all,

Here is a link to an article written by Prof Carlton Larson and published in the Washington University Law Review in 2006: http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1215&context=law_lawreview

I can’t remember, but I don’t think this has been posted here before.  The article isn’t about heraldry, but it does deal with titles of nobility, American law and hereditary privileges.  I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with his conclusions, and I’m sure much of what he writes is already known to many of you…but I still hope you find this interesting.

Thanks! - I look forward to reading it.

And see what you started with a simple question!

Just finished reading all 67 pages ... a lot to digest! - so I’ll sleep on it for now ...

Very interesting.  I’d been doing some reading in some of the same sources in connection with this thread, but am ashamed that the controversy over the Cincinnati didn’t occur to me.

I’m not totally convinced that legacy admissions to public universities (the main focus of the article) are unconstitutional under the titles of nobility clauses, although I agree they should nevertheless be abolished as a matter of principle.

The one thing that occurs to me, directly connected to our concerns here, was prompted by this sentence on page 1400:  "On what other subject [other than the issue of hereditary membership in the Cincinnati] did John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and, I think we can safely say, George Washington, all agree?"

With the exception of Samuel Adams (whose views on the matter do not seem to have been recorded), they all apparently agreed that the use of coats of arms was not inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution.  John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and, of course, George Washington, all used coats of arms in one form or another during the period in which the controversy over the Cincinnati took place.  Washington, of course, expressed the clear view that heraldry was not at odds with republican principles, and John Adams described the contrary misconception as "vulgar insolence."