Basically: In some countries, the pledge is with the constitution or the people, but in others (like constitutional monarchies), its a pledge to the (constitutional) monarch and their successors.
What is your opinion on this loyalty pledge? Do you believe it’s a reasonable request?
(For context: My mother and older brother had to do the pledge to gain [US] citizenship so the idea of deportation isn’t looming over our heads. I didn’t have do it because I was under 18 and my mother’s citizenship status automatically carried over to me according to the law.)
Yes it’s a reasonable request, but it’s also pretty meaningless.
It’s performative. Like if you break this pledge nothing happens.
However, it’s performative in the same way that a marriage is really. I mean you can go to the court house and register your marriage without having a ceremony, but that’s very uncommon and in the vast majority of cases you have a ceremony and do all the things.
Achieving citizenship is an important moment in anyone’s life. If your own case for example your Mother’s citizenship ceremony marked the point at which the work to change the trajectory of her life and all of her descendants had achieved the objective.
A little pomp and ceremony doesn’t hurt.