Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 October 2

= October 2 =

The queen is dead, long live the king
When the Queen dies, will dissolution of the Parliament of the United Kingdom automatically happen, or is that no longer the law? 64.203.186.67 (talk) 13:17, 2 October 2020 (UTC)


 * See Parliament of the United Kingdom, which says:
 * "Formerly, the demise of the Sovereign automatically brought a Parliament to an end, the Crown being seen as the caput, principium, et finis (beginning, basis and end) of the body, but this is no longer the case. The first change was during the reign of William and Mary, when it was seen to be inconvenient to have no Parliament at a time when succession to the Crown could be disputed, and an Act was passed that provided that a Parliament was to continue for six months after the death of a Sovereign, unless dissolved earlier. Under the Representation of the People Act 1867, Parliament can now continue for as long as it would otherwise have done in the event of the death of the Sovereign".
 * Alansplodge (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Gender segregation of the Imperial Court
I have read some about the Imperial Chinese harem system, but have not been able to fully find an answer to exactly how gender segregated life was in the Imperial Chinese court (specifically, the qing dynasty period 1644 to 1912). Were women and men of the Imperial court allowed to meet? I realize they were not allowed to meet as freely as in European courts, but I have a vague impression that they were not quite as restricted as in the Ottoman Imperial Harem either. So; where men and women allowed to meet in some religious or secular ceremonies, celebrations, rituals or banquets at court, or were they really always separated from each other? I'm not referring to female servants and noblemen, nor to eunuchs and harem concubines, but of men and women of equal rank: noblemen and noblemwomen not married or related to each other. Thanks, --Aciram (talk) 16:23, 2 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Women outside of the senior-most royals had no status vis-vis men. It would be highly extraordinary, and highly scandalous, for a woman — married or not — to actually have the opportunity to meet a man outside her own family. DOR (HK) (talk) 19:13, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * See also Life inside the Forbidden City: how women were selected for service. Alansplodge (talk) 11:34, 3 October 2020 (UTC)