"the" is a stop word.
It means search engines many-a-times don't consider it while ranking. For example your domain is The Quint, then you can very well rank at top for the keyword searches of Quint along with The Quint. So visibility chances on Google/Bing searches is more! Also, people don't type "the" while searching. Remember how many times have you typed "the" in search-bar?
Also, generic, dictionary word domains with "the" prefix has good reselling value. TheCar, TheAuto, TheHotel, TheDomain, TheWhisky, etc.