A princess is a woman who has royal blood or whose mother was a member of a monarchy. In modern times, she is usually a consort of a prince and may also be the daughter of a king or queen. She may be a hereditary monarch in a principality, but this is less common, since most such countries exclude women from inheriting the throne. Princesses may also be co-rulers of a country, such as the Princess of Andorra with her husband, Crown Prince Harald of Norway.
In the past, princess was also used as a title of nobility for a woman of royal lineage who was not a sovereign. For example, the Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and paternal grandmother of the present Queen Elizabeth II, was a princess of Greece and Denmark.
She had a fascinating life, which was documented in the recent BBC series The Princess Alice Story. In particular, she was committed to an asylum for paranoid schizophrenia and treated by Sigmund Freud. After she was released from the asylum, she traveled and worked to help people in need and became a nun.
Some researchers, such as Peggy Orenstein, have criticized princess culture and the way that it is presented in movies, such as Cinderella, believing that this teaches young girls the wrong lessons, such as that their worth comes from beauty rather than from character or hard work. However, others believe that princesses are important role models and that they inspire women to follow their dreams.
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