monarchys

Ive been reading some history lately, and I was surprised to find that spain and belgium both have monarchys that take an active role in governing. You would think the idea of having one person rule a country would start to seem backward by the industrial revolution. So since there are people here from these countrys (keltic, geforce), maybe you could explain why you still have a king. There may be other countrys in europe with actively governing monarchys, but Im not aware of them. Ofcourse we all know about the british monarchy, they only seem to provide material for tabloids.