Throughout history, numerous members of royal and noble houses have engaged in same-sex relationships. However, even in jurisdictions where homosexuality was not prohibited or proscribed by law or religious edicts, titles of aristocracy were almost always directly transferred through married spouses of the opposite sex and their offspring (except when certain titles could be inherited by relatives upon a childless death). Nevertheless, queer relationships occurred before, during, and outside such arrangements, as romance and marriage have widely historically been seen as two very different things.