Truth and Marriage
The king has two daughters--the virtuous Amelia, who always tells the truth, and the wicked Leila, who always lies. One of them is married, and one of them is not-but the king has kept the details of the marriage a secret, even down to which of the daughters is wedded. To find a suitable mate for the other daughter, the king has organized a joust. The winner gets to name which of the daughters he wants to marry; if she is available, they will wed the next day.The man who wins asks the king if he may talk to the daughters. The king says he may ask one of the daughters one question, but it can be no more than three words long. The king also decrees that he will kill the winner of the jousting match if he doesn't pick the unoccupied daughter. What question should he ask?
-Imagine that the man who wins doesn't care whether he marries Leila or Amelia, he just wants to marry someone, and he doesn't know which daughter he's asking the question to.
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1 solution
"How is life?" doesn't do anything, as the princesses could just answer good or bad and he wouldn't know whether they were married or not.
"Who's your husband?" doesn't do anything too. If he was talking to Amelia, a name would mean she was married and something else would mean she's not. If he was talking to Leila, a name would mean she's not married and something else would mean she's married. However he doesn't know which daughter he's talking to, so this doesn't work.
" Are you married?" works because no matter who he's talking to, a yes means Amelia is married a no means Leila is married. If he's talking to Amelia, she will say yes if Amelia was married and no if Amelia was not, and if he's talking to Leila, a yes would mean Leila's not married and a no would mean Leila is.
"No question can solve this" doesn't work because we already found an answer.
Therefore, the answer to this riddle is Are you married?