It’s the 18th that will catch them. A truly wonderful anniversary, the frontier of the promised land of adult life. The first ‘eight thousand’ peak in the biography: the age of consent. We have a broad future ahead of us without the hassle of asking parents for permission. On that special day, they prepared an unforgettable celebration for almost all of us, with a little exaggeration. It has nothing to do with the banquet of Eleanor of Borbón, an example of the oldest, most rigid, and most disconnected paraphernalia from the society of her time that would appear in encyclopedias.
Military parades, flags, chotis, the ringing of bells, a succession of ostentatious hand kisses, meals shared with the great-grandparents of their contemporaries, and a very ugly necklace that no young girl in her right mind would choose. They are all very meaningful and contain so much symbolism that few people are responsible for explaining it to mere mortals. A short speech in which the heir to the Spanish throne, aware of the pressure placed on him from birth, asks for confidence not to beg for mercy. His father looked at him with pride, his mother with nervous sadness.
Don’t worry girl, you don’t have to show what kind of queen or what kind of person you will be yet, you are still a work in progress. It’s lucky that King Felipe VI remembered “it’s a birthday” in his toast, otherwise the day would have ended with him listening to the national anthem half a dozen times and never saying “happy, happy day.” To make matters worse, he greets Aznar and Rajoy, but without listening to the voices sent by his closest friends. I don’t know if anyone told the Princess of Asturias that they can now vote, which is always emphasized to those who are 18 years old. This is a distinctive fact of coming of age, a welcome to citizenship and a responsibility to cooperate for the common good.
A queen voting would be an unusual event. There are those who mistakenly believe that kings are not legally included in the electoral rolls and that they cannot participate in elections like those with final convictions, but no. When parties join because of one of these unwritten traditions, they participate in abstention as a way of guaranteeing equality in the performance of several of their corresponding tasks. It’s as if not voting means an absence of ideology or sympathy, as if there aren’t good positions to defend even if it offends some, or as if they don’t have the right to choose the same thing as everyone else. Choosing isn’t that important, it doesn’t suit the crown.
The words Leonor spoke after taking the oath of office on the Constitution could have been spoken by her father 37 years ago: generally masculine, devoid of emotion, without reference to the problems and difficulties she would have to face, without a single nod to her own generation. A submissive girl who speaks through other people’s mouths, whose functions are perfectly to the millimeter, is not an adult woman. Another flawless and icy tightrope walker in the monarchical institution, confident that mistakes and absence of opinions will ensure his survival. The coming of age ceremony took place as planned, a parenthesis of many of the tensions that affected Spanish public life and are still present today for those who wish to see it. Leonor can now vote, although she won’t be doing so. And get your driver’s license, which is always good and you never know when you’ll need it.