ABSTRACT
Monarchy is one of our oldest and most enduring political entities. It has existed in many forms and permutations over all areas of the globe and under many names and guises, including Polynesian ari’i rahi and ariki, the Yang di-Pertuan of Malaysia, Sapu of the Inca, the Oba in West Africa and the Muslim Padishahs, and temporally from the ancient era to today’s constitutional monarchs. While there are those who would seek to put an end to monarchy, as ‘an outmoded and outdated institution’ or would even label it, as Jeremy Paxman famously did as ‘mumbo-jumbo’, there is little doubt of its significance in terms of academic study, as a central element of civilizations around the globe from its earliest societies until the present day. 1 Monarchy has been scrutinized by specialists from multiple disciplines, particularly historians, anthropologists, sociologists, archaeologists, art historians, literary specialists and through the lens of gender studies.
