Chapter 2075 Marriage of Nobles

"His Royal Highness has mentioned you a long time ago. I finally met you today. It's a pleasure to meet you." The baron looked polite and spoke an authentic British accent, which made people almost forget that he was a native German.

"It is also my honor to meet you, Your Excellency." Yang Cheng replied neither humble nor overbearing. He had a good first impression of this funny-looking baron with a rather contradictory appearance. It seems that William also knew his own appetite. I will not introduce those unreliable and arrogant nobles to myself.

The place where we met today is the property under the name of the baron, an inconspicuous mountain hotel, a three-story villa in the shape of a wooden castle, located in a certain mountain range in the Black Forest.

"Otto has been worrying about the marriage of his younger generation recently, and it's not easy to come out and meet." As William, he can naturally call him by his first name, and judging from his casually teasing tone, the relationship between the two should be very good.

Yang Cheng took advantage of the situation and asked, "Oh? Is it because there is no suitable marriage partner?"

Marriages among European nobles are nothing new.

The baron smiled bitterly, "My youngest daughter is not interested in marriage, but it has been a custom for thousands of years, and I have no right to change it, let alone her.

Of course, it is also very helpless to find a suitable marriage partner. "

Yang Cheng nodded understandingly. In order to continue their power, the superiors will always come up with various methods, and marriage is undoubtedly the most cost-effective one.

True love is worthless among nobles!

Of course, there are more passionate seeds among the nobles. Like Prince Charles, Europe has a lot of them.

Friends familiar with German classics may know Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, who was one of Schiller's early patrons.

The duke is very literary and artistic. In addition to liking Schiller's poems, he also studied keyboard music with the son of the composer Bach, and is keen on plant cultivation.

Karl Eugen was educated in the court of the famous Prussian monarch Friedrich the Great since he was a child, and participated in the Seven Years War in the Prussian army. In the era when the two ideologies of autocratic monarchy and liberalism were fighting each other, he was a typical figure. A ruler of both colors.

In terms of private life, Karl Eugen had a series of mistresses and eleven illegitimate children, and caused many scandals.

But his true love is a lowly woman: Franziska, daughter of one baron and wife of another.

For the general public,

The baroness and the baroness are of course high above, but for the duke who rules an important German state, the baron is too low, so when he insisted on marrying Franziska in 1785, he encountered many difficulties. Great resistance.

Even though the Ming media is marrying, the marriage between Karl Eugen and Franziska is still considered a mixed marriage. An obvious manifestation is that Franziska cannot use the title of Duchess of Württemberg, and the children born to them do not have complete inheritance rights .

It's a bit like Charles' situation.

However, Karl Eugen is more particular. In order to improve Franziska's status, Karl Eugen asked Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II for (xing) love (hui), and in 1774 he got her the "Countess of Hohenheim Empire" " title.

Karl Eugen also wanted to upgrade her status to marquise, but the emperor refused. The coat of arms of the countess Franziska of the Hohenheim Empire was that of the extinct Hohenheim Bambast family.

Even so, Franziska never won the title of "Duchess of Württemberg", her children with the Duke were also excluded from the order of succession, and in formal ceremonial occasions, her priority was lower than Karl's. Eugene's sister-in-law.

Franziska's story is very typical. This is the marriage of German nobles, which can be said to be full of inequality, not to mention between nobles and nobles. In fact, individual noble families are also full of inequality.

Educational opportunities vary widely between boys and girls, between eldest and youngest sons, and sacrifices must be made for the good of the family.

For example, marriage, another major event in life, is also very unequal within the noble family, and many sacrifices are also required. Marriage between nobles pays attention to a well-matched family.

The most important thing for a family to pass on the family line is to ensure that there are legal heirs. In other words, it is necessary to have as many boys as possible within the scope of marriage to resist the "loss" caused by disasters such as diseases, wars, turmoil, and accidents. main function of marriage.

However, if many boys are born and all grow up healthy, it will be a heavy burden on the family's economy.

Even if most aristocratic families wanted to treat all children equally, they could not do so, which meant that while the eldest son inherited the family business and property, the youngest sons could fend for themselves;

While the eldest son gets married and has children, the youngest sons may not have enough financial strength to find a suitable partner to start their own family.

But I want to emphasize that this is not because the youngest sons of the nobles can’t afford to marry, but because they can’t marry the right marriage. There is a large gap in terms of the number of children and the number of children.

Under the pressure of the aristocratic society, many noble sons were forced to remain unmarried for life. Of course, this does not mean that they have no sexual life and no children. Some noble boys in Catholic areas were arranged by their parents to follow the religious path when they were young. That means being single and staying chaste. However, if something happens to the long house and no one inherits it, even an old male uncle who has been a priest for decades may be pulled out of the church to return to secular life, get married, and have children.

Inequality in marriage leads to an imbalance in the noble marriage market: there are too many women in the boudoir, and too few men who can marry. Only women with prominent status will not encounter difficulties. Women often marry men with a higher status than themselves , which is beneficial to the interests of the woman's family, because it can closely link the son-in-law and the woman's family.

Marriage is not equal between the eldest son and the youngest son, and even more so between men and women. Women generally do not have the opportunity to choose a spouse, and in most cases they must obey the arrangements of their parents or other elders.

If you dare to resist, it will cause an uproar. Uncle Rhine, Agnes, the daughter of Conrad of the Stauffen family, was originally destined to obey the arrangement of Emperor Henry VI and marry Philip II, King of France, but she secretly married The eldest son of Henry the Lion (of the Welf family, rivals of the Stauffen family). Emperor Henry VI was furious and asked the House of the Rhine Palace to dissolve the marriage, but failed.

Therefore, "well-matched family" refers to social status and the contacts it can bring: nobles only marry nobles, and there are few intermarriages between nobles of different ranks. For example, high-ranking nobles rarely marry low-ranking nobles;

On the one hand, it is related to religious factors. For example, Catholic nobles generally do not choose Protestants or Calvinists, and Protestant noble men east of the Elbe River generally do not marry Catholic noble women.

Of course, money is a very important factor, but if you marry a low-born woman for money, you will be despised in the aristocratic circle.

In the late Middle Ages, if he married a woman from the bourgeoisie, male aristocrats would be discriminated against in many forms, but it was not impossible. Most of the mixed marriages were that the man had a higher status, and the woman could get income from her husband’s family, but she could not enjoy the corresponding social status. Status and privileges, the husband's title cannot be used, but a new, lower title may be obtained.

Children born of high and lowly marriages cannot enjoy complete inheritance rights, but they can be regarded as "spare tires". If there is no more legal heir, such children may also inherit titles and family business.

Therefore, "noble marriages must be well-matched", this is not only a matter of personal courage, but also a legal issue in many places.

Once, the laws of the Kingdom of Prussia explicitly prohibited aristocratic men from entering into marriages that did not conform to noble honor and decency, but allowed them to marry women from the "upper bourgeoisie".

This regulation was only valid in Prussia and continued until the second half of the 19th century. Throughout Germany, generally speaking, nobles need the permission of the patriarch of their family when they get married.

If you insist on marrying someone whose status is far lower than your own, then both male and female nobles will be greatly negatively affected, such as not being able to enjoy full rights and interests in property inheritance.

After the 19th century, the rule that nobles only married nobles was gradually relaxed, and unmatched marriages would not be punished by law, but they were still discriminated against in social occasions in the upper class, so many noble families still only married in the upper class according to tradition. Looking for a marriage partner in your own circle, of course, it would be great if you can marry a family with a higher status.

This is not over yet, after having a well-matched marriage partner, the two noble families who are about to marry will start a series of negotiations.

Noble marriages in the Middle Ages were rarely directly related to love, mainly political influence and economic transactions.

Families of both parties are involved in the negotiations, and sometimes the groom talks directly with the bride's father. It is very common for the bride and groom to marry each other and children to be betrothed by their parents. Some couples do not meet for the first time until they get married.

The main content of the negotiation is the dowry of the woman, and how much the father-in-law should give the son-in-law in addition to the dowry, and how much financial support the widow's father should provide if the husband dies and the widow enters a monastery;

There is also the woman’s pocket money, which refers to the money that the husband gives his wife freely on a regular basis; the arrangement of property inheritance, whether the woman has the right to inherit the husband’s property, and if so, how much can be inherited; the arrangement of guardianship, if the man If the husband dies early, the child belongs to guardianship; the widow's maintenance, if the husband dies early, how the widow can make a living, whether the widow has the right to continue living in the husband's house, how much living allowance and material support the widow receives from the husband's family, etc.

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