Arms of a Woman

Often services of armorial porcelain and gaming counters were designed for the wives and daughters of members of the peerage. Thus a special method to display the family arms developed. These special arms took a different shape than their male counterparts. Female arms resembled those of their fathers and husbands, but rather than a shield, the heraldic imagery adorned a lozenge (diamond) or an oval shape. Since women did not traditionally have a place on the battlefield, their arms did not take the form of a shield. The exception to this was a heraldic heiress. Heraldic heiresses were women with no living brothers after the death of her father. It became her right and responsibility to bear and pass on the family arms. If her husband also possessed a coat of arms, their arms could be collectively displayed in pretence and their arms were quartered when passed onto their children.