Norway's big royal family marriage experiment

There's something rotten in... Norway too

Historically, noble and especially royal families refused to let their children marry commoners. This would risk bad blood they said (according to movies). This practice flies in the face of meritocratic marriage standards to which we are now accustomed and strikes us as unfair and old fashioned. Famously, there has been a number of occasions in recent history where members did in fact marry commoners anyway.

First, we have Edward the 8th of Britain:

In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second.

The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political, and moral objections were raised. As the British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which at this time did not allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive.^[a] For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward could not marry Simpson and remain on the throne. As a double-divorcée, Simpson was perceived to be politically, morally and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King. Despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her as soon as her second divorce was finalised.

The widespread unwillingness to accept Simpson as the King's consort and Edward's refusal to give her up led to his abdication in December 1936.^[b] He was succeeded by his brother Albert, who became George VI. Edward was given the title of Duke of Windsor, and styled Royal Highness, following his abdication, and he married Simpson the following year. They remained married until his death 35 years later.

The movie version of this history can be found in The King's Speech (2010), though it is mainly about the brother. Things ended relatively well in this case:

After his abdication, Edward was created Duke of Windsor. He married Simpson in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. Later that year, the couple toured Nazi Germany, which fed rumours that he was a Nazi sympathiser. During the Second World War, Edward was at first stationed with the British Military Mission to France. After the fall of France, he was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. After the war, Edward spent the rest of his life in France. He and Wallis remained married until his death in 1972; they had no children.

Not to be outdone by his ancestors, another British prince (Harry) decided to do a replication with Meghan Markle. She is known for her bad opinions, and her parents are divorced, but at least she did acquired a university degree (though in a useless field). Their first act was to leave the royal family (they are probably relieved).

But consider the Norwegian royal family's attempt at becoming unpopular:

The wedding of Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway and Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby took place on 25 August 2001 at Oslo Cathedral. It was the first royal wedding to take place in Norway since the marriage of then-Crown Prince Harald to Sonja Haraldsen in 1968.^[1] Because of the background of the bride, the wedding was frequently referred to in publications as "unconventional" and "uncommon," and Mette-Marit as a modern-day Cinderella.^[2][3][4]

What was her background?:

Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby was born in Kristiansand in the southern part of Norway, the daughter of Sven O. Høiby, who had been unemployed for some time but who had previously worked as a small-scale advertiser and journalist for a local paper in his hometown of Kristiansand, and Marit Tjessem, a former bank clerk. Her father was also a convicted felon, who had twice been convicted of violence.^[2] Her parents divorced, and her father later married professional stripper Renate Barsgård.^[3] She has a sister and two older brothers, including Per Høiby. Her step-brother, Trond Berntsen, by her mother's 1994 marriage to Rolf Berntsen, died in the 2011 Norway attacks.^[4] Mette-Marit grew up in Kristiansand, spending many weekends and holidays in the nearby valley of Setesdal and on the coast, where she learned to sail. During her youth, she was active in the local Slettheia youth club, where she was also an activity leader. As a teenager, she played volleyball, qualifying as a referee and coach.

But it gets worse when we check the other side of the family as well:

[Marius, the son] Høiby was born on 13 January 1997 at Aker University Hospital in Oslo,^[18] to Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, then a waitress, and Morten Borg, a convicted felon.^[19] His grandfather Sven O. Høiby was also a convicted felon and unemployed alcoholic, who married a stripper in his second marriage.^[20] His parents were never in a relationship, and only had a brief encounter^[21] after they were introduced by John Ognby, Høiby's former cohabitant and fiancé, who was also a convicted felon.^[22][23] For two years Mette-Marit was in a relationship with Ognby, a man on welfare who was 15 years her senior, until shortly before Marius' birth. They shared a social housing apartment provided by welfare services in a working-class neighborhood in Lillestrøm, until a breakup occurred after Ognby chased Mette-Marit down the street with a knife around the time she became pregnant with Marius.^[24]

Why would a Crown prince marry her? Anyway, now news has broken that this ill-fated son has in fact turned out as one might expect. Here I will only quote a bit because the Wikipedia summary is too long to quote in full (!):

On 18 November 2024, Høiby was arrested on suspicion of rape.^[11] Since 20 November 2024, he has been held in remand at Hamar Prison,^[1][2] and he is held incommunicado.^[77][12] The justice system has authorised that the police can keep him no longer than until 27 November 2024; at that time his one-week detention expired; the prosecutor had asked for two weeks.^[77] He was promptly released on that date.^[78]

On 25 November, it became known that Høiby is under investigating for raping another woman, after having been released following his initial arrest and questioning by the police.^[79][80]

Høiby invited criminal friends to the royal property Skaugum, including members of the Hells Angels criminal gang, to what he called "Skaugum festivals", where drugs were consumed. At these festivals Mette-Marit personally received Marius' criminal friends.^[81][82][83] Høiby is also charged with raping women at Skaugum.^[84] Jan Bøhler wrote that "a member of the royal family has for years vacationed and partied with central figures in drug-related crime. Individuals known for involvement in serious money laundering cases and violent gangs, including the Hells Angels, have also participated in the festivities. These enemies of society have been allowed to roam freely on the Crown Prince couple's properties during events referred to as 'Skaugum festivals'."^[85]

As of December 2024, Høiby had started in a program of drug rehabilitation.^[86][87]

As of June 2025, Høiby is no longer charged in regard to violence against another named woman, within about a four-year period.^[88] The charges said that he pulled her hair, pushed her, and hit her.^[89] She was once a girlfriend of Høiby.^[41][90][91]

Norwegian media reported that Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway had been informed of the accusations against Høiby by the mother of Høiby's then-girlfriend, but that the girlfriend's family felt Haakon had failed to respond.^[92]

On 27 June 2025, it was reported that Høiby is suspected of 3 rapes and 23 other offences, including bodily harm and sexual assault. This follows a 10 month investigation, involving witness interviews, searches and reviewing digital material. It is claimed to involve "a double-digit number" of victims. Prosecutors will decide whether to press charges.^[93][94]

The only thing fortunate about this case is that this son is not an heir to the throne, as he is from a previous 'marriage'. The 2 new children from the marriage to the crown prince are still too young to tell if they will show behavioral problems. The only concern I found was that the Crown Princess (in line) apparently said she considers her half-brother to be a role model.

OK, but maybe Norway can simply go with the other sibling and disregard prince Haakon's questionable line of descent? Not even so. Consider the alternative:

Princess Märtha Louise of Norway (born 22 September 1971) is a Norwegian self-described clairvoyant,^[2][3] businesswoman and a member of the Norwegian royal family, although she is not a member of the royal house and has no public role. She is married to Durek Verrett.^[4]

Right, so who is Durek Verrett?

OK then, I hope things turn out well for the current line of descent. Given that the first born is a woman (princess Ingrid), which generally have fewer behavioral issues, the chances aren't too bad.

For an alternative approach, consider the Danish king's choice of commoner, Mary Queen of Denmark:

Mary Elizabeth Donaldson was born 5 February 1972 at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Battery Point, a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania.^[3] She is youngest of four children to Scottish parents, Henrietta (née Horne), an executive assistant to the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and John Dalgleish Donaldson, an academic, mathematics professor and member of the Clan Donald.^[4][5] Her paternal grandfather was Captain Peter Donaldson (1911–1978).^[6] She was named after her grandmothers, Mary Dalgleish and Elizabeth Gibson Melrose, and was born and raised in Hobart. She has two older sisters, Jane Stephens and Patricia Bailey, and an older brother, John Stuart Donaldson. Her mother died from complications following heart surgery on 20 November 1997, when Mary was 25.^[7] In 2001, her father married the British author and novelist Susan Moody (née Horwood).^[5]

Her pedigree is rather elite by comparison. Of their 4 children, the oldest (prince Christian) doesn't show any behavioral concerns so far.

Why care about descent? One of the first adoption studies of this was done in Denmark already in the 1980s. By 2005, when Moffitt meta-analyzed about 100 estimates of the heritability, it looked like this:

There is good reason to think this is a stark underestimate because antisocial behavior is very difficult to measure well and measurement error causes heritability to be underestimated (A and C too low, E too high). There's only one study I know of that used multiple indicators to measure a latent antisocial trait. I wrote about it some years back, here's the summary:

Genetic and environmental influences on childhood antisocial and aggressive behavior (ASB) during childhood were examined in 9- to 10-year-old twins, using a multi-informant approach. The sample (605 families of twins or triplets) was socioeconomically and ethnically diverse, representative of the culturally diverse urban population in Southern California. Measures of ASB included symptom counts for conduct disorder, ratings of aggression, delinquency, and psychopathic traits obtained through child self-reports, teacher, and caregiver ratings. Multivariate analysis revealed a common ASB factor across informants that was strongly heritable (heritability was .96), highlighting the importance of a broad, general measure obtained from multiple sources as a plausible construct for future investigations of specific genetic mechanisms in ASB. The best fitting multivariate model required informant-specific genetic, environmental, and rater effects for variation in observed ASB measures. The results suggest that parent, children, and teachers have only a partly “shared view” and that the additional factors that influence the “rater-specific” view of the child’s antisocial behavior vary for different informants. This is the first study to demonstrate strong heritable effects on ASB in ethnically and economically diverse samples.

96% is too high, but as far as I know, no follow-up or replication has been done using this careful a measurement.