Likely, but not inevitable: the House of Savoy always managed a male heir, as did Denmark after Margarethe I up to Margarethe II.
True, not to mention large families: The Austrian Hapsburgs were almost always able to "dig" somebody up while the Spanish seemed to have a problem having healthy boys. A direct descent son to son isn't as rare as it seems- it didn't happen in England because of the Wars of the Roses though...not really down to Richard and Berengaria.
Not sure if you're serious, but that relation only works one way.Lets look at it in reverse: every man has a father who has a father... all the way back to Adam.
Seems to me that its not inevitable when you look at it that way.
Not sure if you're serious, but that relation only works one way.
By definition, a man is the son of his father. However, not every man is a father, and not every father has a son.
It would be much lower than that. Many kings were infertile, or only had daughters, or their sons died before reaching adulthood, or they were deposed before their sons could inherit.My point is that, from a certain point of view, you ultimately have a 50/50 shot of being able to maitain an unbroken lime of male progeny, to infinity.
It would be much lower than that. Many kings were infertile, or only had daughters, or their sons died before reaching adulthood, or they were deposed before their sons could inherit.
If your starting point is in 100,000 BC or earlier, then all male lines are unbroken because all men have a y-chromosome. But medieval people didn't know or care about chromosomes. It's irrelevant to the days of kings and dynasties.Empirically, you're certainly correct. However, there's currently 3 billion lines of unbroken male descent, stretching back over somewhere over ~100 thousand years. Thats pretty good odds, overall.
If your starting point is in 100,000 BC or earlier, then all male lines are unbroken because all men have a y-chromosome. But medieval people didn't know or care about chromosomes. It's irrelevant to the days of kings and dynasties.
If a man, in this case the King of England, has only daughters, then his daughters marry a different male line, in a different royal family. That breaks the previous king's direct male line, and thus also breaks the agnatic succession for the kingdom.
Also, there are not 3 billion lines of unbroken male descent even if you stretch back 100,000+ years. If you stretch back far enough, there is only one male line--the patrilineal descendants of y-chromosomal Adam, which includes all 3.7 billion living men. In order for there to be 3.7 billion distinct male lines, there would have to be at least 3.7 billion men at any possible time for the past 100,000+ years, to be descended from.
True, not to mention large families: The Austrian Hapsburgs were almost always able to "dig" somebody up...
A direct descent son to son isn't as rare as it seems - it didn't happen in England because of the Wars of the Roses though...
33 generations, or about a millennium's worth.At what point, by your calculations, do you reach 50/50?