Marriage and Family
The King married Silvia Sommerlath, whose father was German and whose mother was Brazilian, and who had grown up in both countries. They met at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where she was an interpreter and hostess. The wedding was held on 19 June 1976, at the Stockholm Cathedral, and the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Uppsala, Olof Sundby. The wedding was preceded, the evening before, by a Royal Variety Performance, where the Swedish musical group ABBA performed "Dancing Queen" for the very first time, as a tribute to Sweden's Queen to be. The King and his family moved to Drottningholm Palace west of Stockholm in 1980. He and the Queen have maintained their business offices at the Royal Palace of Stockholm.
King Carl Gustav and Queen Silvia have three children:
- Her Royal Highness Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland, born on 14 July 1977. She was married on 19 June 2010, to Daniel Westling, who was born on 15 September 1973, (on the same day that Carl XVI Gustav ascended the Swedish throne). Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel have one child:
- Princess Estelle, Duchess of Östergötland (born 23 February 2012)
- His Royal Highness Prince Carl Philip Edmund Bertil, Duke of Värmland, born on 13 May 1979.
- Her Royal Highness Princess Madeleine Thérèse Amelie Josephine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland, born on 10 June 1982.
Prince Carl Philip was born the heir apparent. However, a Constitutional reform, which was already under way at the time of his birth, made his older sister, Victoria, the heiress-apparent and Crown Princess of Sweden on 1 January 1980, according to the principles of absolute primogeniture, which Sweden was the first recognized monarchy to adopt. King Carl Gustaf objected, not to the restored female succession but to the fact that his son lost the position and title of Crown Prince of Sweden which he had had since birth.
Read more about this topic: Carl XVI Gustaf Of Sweden
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or family:
“And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)