The fascinating thing when you study history is that you find answers for many things that are forgotten due to the power of tradition – things that just are because they are. One of those things is a certain paradox in chess: The queen. While far from the crucial piece in the game, it is the most powerful and unbalanced compared to the other pieces. When one scratches beneath the surface, the influence of traditional feminism comes out.
We’re told that chess was invented in India as a war-game called Chataurang. It spread through the Middle East and then to Europe. Given that it was a war game, it had the King, the Vizier, the elephant, the horse, the chariot, and the foot soldier. The Vizier is best thought of as second-in-command to the King, or counselor or viceroy. We can find notes of this in Scripture through Daniel (Daniel 6:3), and Joseph (Genesis 41:39-44).
Given that the Persian culture was much different than the European culture at the time it was brought there (estimated around 1000 AD) through Spain, these pieces were exchanged for the King, Queen, Knight, Rook, Bishop, and Pawn. While realistically portrayed to start, they became the forms we know today due to the influence of Islam. The Vizier or Queen originally could move one step diagonally in any direction, while the Bishop could move two spaces diagonally in any direction. Once upon a time, a pawn that reached the other end of the board could be made into a queen.
Enter the rise of the Goddess Cult, along with traditional feminism. It is notable that chess eventually became a cover for romance about the same time (a chess game was a long-term activity, giving a man and woman license for lots more than just the game), legitimizing women in the game and removing it from the mind as a war strategy game.
Eventually, you had a few rule changes. The bishop could range the board, and the queening of the pawn was eliminated due to the inference of polygamy. But chief of those rules was the changing of the Queen. Given these influences of doctrine of Mary, along with the regent queens of the time, the piece was made into the most powerful on the board, moving any number of spaces in any direction. Queen’s Chess or Mad Queen’s Chess, the chess we know today, was introduced in 1475 in Spain and spread from there.
So we have the paradox in chess of the feeble monarch and the all-powerful Queen as generated by the influence of Isabella of Spain, who thought the chess queen to be too feeble of a representation of herself. This is legitimized by the Goddess Cult, as chess was employed as a metaphor of the battle of God (white) and Lucifer (black), wherein the white queen is the Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 7:18). If a woman could be Queen of Heaven, then why not a woman queen on earth?
How many realize that the rules of chess, as many doctrines, are born out of the solipsistic urgings of a woman? And how interesting is it that the power relationship between the chess queen and king are indicative of Marriage 2.0 today?
Image source: Chessbase.com
Ballista74's Blog 
Good research and writing.
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Fascinating.
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agree with JF
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Since when does the pawn not get promoted? Been playing my whole life and never played without promotion of the pawn. Although in most games, Chessmaster and the like, you can choose whether you want the Queen or another piece once you get there.
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@Sean Given my understanding, there’s varying rules depending on what is accepted or not. Chess has been a controversial game, subject to ban by the Roman Catholic church and other entities for various reasons. One of those is the implication of the promotion of the pawn, as I described.
In some cases, you don’t have promotion whatosever, in others you have limited promotion (wherein you can’t have more pieces than what was on the table at the start of the game, solving the polygamy question since only one queen can exist), others unlimited promotion. As the countries vary, you can imagine the rules to vary depending on the sensibilities of the people involved. To wit, I understand the game is still what it basically was at inception if you go into mid-asia or the middle east.
Regardless, the rule variance of promotion doesn’t erase the cultural intents behind the reason there is a variance, and the reason that the queen is so powerful within the game.
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My dad taught me to play chess when I was a boy, and I enjoyed it when I was young. Later I played battle chess when computers became popular, but now I have lost interest.
Regarding pawn promotion we always played that you could only promote a pawn to queen if your queen was already gone [effectively removing any connotation of polygamy]. I always thought favourably about pawn promotion as some kind of salvation metaphor, we a mere pawns called of God get promoted at the conclusion [resurrection] of our game. joy!
I always thought the movement of the queen was representative of the way she was not encumbered by the office of king yet still retained such closeness as to have-the-best-of-both-worlds.
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Interesting post.
While the Queen is the most powerful piece, you can argue it is not the most important. The King is. The objective is to checkmate the opponent’s king, while keeping yours safe. Even if the Queens are traded off the board, the game still continues. You can still win without a Queen, and some of the most memorable games involve Queen sacrifices – that is to trade a Queen for a much lesser value piece or for nothing at all, but get a winning attack. On the other side of that, if your King is about to be checkmated, you will need to do everything necessary to prevent it, including sacrificing your Queen to end the attack (but most likely still lose thereafter). I’ve never read the history behind chess until now, but my own take on it is that all pieces are under the control of the King. The Queen fights for her King. Of course, that’s not to say my view is shared by those that created the pieces or influenced the rules of the game.
Slightly related:
Women compete in female-only competitions in sport. Most acknowledge women are physically inferior, but like to maintain that intellectually, we are the same, and any differences can be explained by the Patriarchy and culture. This is an assertion that is easier to hide behind (at least in modern day times) as its not as obvious as physicality.
There are various arguments that disprove this, but chess is an interesting one. The game is dominated by men. Titles such as International Master, and Grand Master are awarded to players based on rating and wins over other titled players. Women however can earn titles such as Woman International Master (WIM) and Woman Grand Master (WGM), which are much easier to achieve than the open titles. This is basically conceding that women just can’t play on men’s level – intellectually.
I will note that there has been one woman in history, who did break into the elite club (rating over 2700), but did not stay there for long. But for the other 99% of women chess players, they do not even try to play against top level men, instead they often have their own women-only tournaments.
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FWIW, here’s what my research indicates as to why the Queen wasn’t made the non-expendable piece (though there seems to be early variants where that was the case):
It’s interesting that a few of those things note that a female was prized once upon a time for her skill at playing chess. The division and decrease in the number of female players seems to be linked to the de-emphasis of chess as a social activity, caused by the Queen’s Chess rules where you had to strictly pay attention to the game or lose in minutes. I think that’s what gets missed with all the feminist grousing – if women just aren’t interested in something, why push them?
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