Comparative analysis of women rulers and main wives of kings in eight premodern states around the globe reveals similar patterns of political agency, or the opportunity and ability to take political action. Queen rulers, regents, and main wives substituting for their husbands in their absence made policy, but they had somewhat less political agency than male rulers. Main wives’ political agency took the forms of influencing policy and people’s behavior (sometimes through their role as patron to others), interceding between their kin and their husbands, advocating for one party or the other, spying, and conspiring. Therefore, women’s political agency ought to be part of any political study. This study builds on the anthropological/archaeological study of agency by drawing attention to royal women’s political agency and showing how the analysis of structural rules and the roles of kings, queen rulers, and main wives illuminates the societal structure in which agency is embedded. By analyzing premodern societies this way, we learn that there is remarkable similarity of agency behaviors among royal women in the eight sample societies, even though the societies emerged independently of one another.

中文翻译：

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皇家妇女的政治机构：根据社会规则和角色对八个前现代国家的比较分析

对全球八个前现代州的女性统治者和国王的主要妻子进行的比较分析表明，政治代理机构的模式相似，或者采取政治行动的机会和能力。女王统治者，摄政王和主要妻子在没有丈夫的情况下代替丈夫制定了政策，但他们的政治代理机构比男性统治者要少。主要妻子的政治代理采取影响政策和人们的行为的形式（有时通过他们作为他人的赞助人），亲戚和丈夫之间的干预，提倡一方或另一方，从事间谍活动和阴谋。因此，妇女政治机构应成为任何政治研究的一部分。这项研究建立在对代理机构的人类学/考古学研究的基础上，通过引起人们对皇室妇女政治代理机构的关注，并展示了对结构规则的分析以及国王，王后统治者和主要妻子的角色如何照亮了代理机构所处的社会结构。通过这种方式对前现代社会进行分析，我们了解到，尽管八个社会相互独立，但在八个样本社会中，王室女性之间的代理行为具有显着相似性。