The most common configuration is for the king to be the ultimate decision maker, and for the queen to be the king's adviser and head of the daily running of domestic affairs. However, the division is not set in stone. It can be the other way around, in which we would be dealing with a matriarchy, or any symbiotic relationship that makes sense for the individuals concerned. The key is that there's a husband and wife team at the head of the organization.
When society organizes into more complex structures, such as a town or city, the default organization is for prominent patriarchs to sit in the town council. Only those with local land and business interests wield political power, the logic being that only those who can shoulder expenses can have a say in how things are organized. Those with no land and no capital have no business organizing how things should be done. Towns will in essence be organized like privately held companies, with a council of advisors and a CEO responsible for daily operations.
This might sound quaint and old fashioned, but is in essence how things are organized even today. Contrary to popular belief, political matters are taken care of by prominent families. Democracy is but a shell game for the wider population. I know this from personal experience as a member of an influential family in Norway. The family business has never been challenged, no matter how dramatic some of the political upheavals have appeared to be to the general public.
A small nation like Norway is run by an elite of no more than a few thousand families. For every couple of thousand people, there's some private constellation in charge of things. This is sometimes kept a secret, but in many cases used as motivation. Many people like the idea of patriarchy. There's something noble about the idea that there's an aristocrat of sorts at the helm of a business.
Patriarchy is the default political structure for the simple reason that we live in families. It's always the parents who make the decisions in the household. Families are patriarchies by default. A successful family business employs servants who naturally fold into the preexisting structure, which is organic in nature.
When the head a patriarchy dies, there's an inheritance that must be managed by the next generation. The inheritors may decide to sell everything and go their separate ways, or they may decide to stick together, keep the family business, and hopefully grow it to support the larger family. If they choose the latter, the family becomes a clan, and the patriarch becomes the business leader. Alternatively, every inheritor sets off on their own adventures.
Either way, there will be competition. In the case of a clan, politics internal to the family will converge on a leader. In the case of a break up, there's competition and intrigue in the world at large. The patriarchy is in other words a meritocracy. Only those best adapted to the circumstances rise to power. Those less adapted will remain relatively obscure.
The vast majority of us will never become influential patriarchs in the political sense. However, a modest domain to call our own is well within our reach, and may be just as rewarding as that of a more prominent patriarchy. It's certainly more secure. The head of a clan can be deposed at any moment by rival factions, and any mismanagement of the family inheritance will be badly received by a lot of people. The head of a clan risks all sorts of social and economic hardships while the risk faced by the head of a small patriarchy is limited to economic ruin and divorce. Social disgrace is not as likely when the total domain of a patriarchy is limited to the immediate family. Nor is failure.
The problem with extended patriarchies is that circumstances always change. The original patriarch founded his business in a different time, and with different insights than those of his descendants. Yet the temptation is for a descendant to simply emulate the business recipe that spelled success for the founder. If the founder bought land, the descendants buy land. If the founder invested in ships, the descendants invest in ships. But times change. Land and ships may be vastly overpriced. What was once a genius move is no longer the right thing to do.
There's a common delusion among descendants of prominent patriarchs that they know what they're doing, simply by virtue of who they are. The idea is that the family business runs in their blood, that success is guaranteed by virtue of their genetic makeup. With a firm belief in their superiority, they make decisions with little or no understanding of what they're doing, because they never took the time to study the family business.
This is why so many family ventures fail after the passing of the founding patriarch. Descendant are simply emulating their forefather, with no clue as to what they're doing. Had they instead focused on what they were good at, they would have been more successful.
I've seen this pan out in real life. I grew up in the shadow of a prominent patriarch. For years, I tried my best to emulate the patriarch. But I never had any real understanding of the family business, or the politics involved. I never achieved much. It was not until after I decided to go my separate way that I started to have some success. Instead of focusing on family politics and the superficial actions of prominent forefathers, I directed my energy towards the study of economy and finance. That's where my true interest lay, and that's where I've achieved some success in recent years. I'm not an administrator, nor a politician. I'm an investor, and as such, I thrive in the shadows.
Once I gave up on the idea of success inside the family, I was free to focus on things only tangentially related to the family business. Then I used the leverage of my family wealth to build my separate little domain in Portugal, far from the hustle and bustle of family politics. Instead of an obscure existence within an extended patriarchy, I've established my own little domain which I intend to grow into a flourishing little business.
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By Unknown author - http://www.jasperburns.com/gasbresc.html; http://www.turismobrescia.it/en/punto-d-interesse/desiderius-cross;, Public Domain, Link
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