It is also worth observing that monarchy is probably the only prominent system of government we know of in which children are crucial players, since everything depends on the monarch’s ability to continue the dynastic line. The dead can be worshipped under any regime – even the United States, which frames itself as a beacon of democracy, creates temples to its Founding Fathers and carves portraits of dead presidents into the sides of mountains – but infants, pure objects of love and nurture, are only politically important in kingdoms and empires.
