What function do princesses serve? Understanding this is the key to understanding princess syndrome.

And princesses, from time immemorial, have only been cherished for one thing, to serve as vessels for royal seed. They aren't protected to do necessary work someday, like princes are. They aren't educated so they may use that education in governance. They aren't given privileges so that they may exercise them in support of her people. The investment in the princess is for one purpose and one purpose only:

To make her a lay suitable for a prince. Anything else is a failed life.

There was a time when forward thinking women believed that this obligation of the princess's part was a cruel fate she was dealt; they believed Princess Diana, with her short hair and assertive nature, was consigned to a life of tragedy when she was betrothed to Prince Charles.

These days, however, the princess has been democratized in the form of Kate Middleton; today's women and girls have embraced the princess in the sense that they believe that every woman has a right to be a vessel of royal seed, and that anything less than that (a career, a good home made, a life of virtue) is a failed life.

THAT, to me, is the heart of what "princess syndrome" is in today's woman.