Marriage
On 23 January 1765, at the age of 25, she married the widowed Joseph, King of the Romans, and heir of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, in Schönbrunn Palace. She was two years older than her husband.
The marriage was never happy; it had taken place only under pressure from Joseph's mother, Maria Theresa, who wanted her son to provide an heir to the throne. Joseph, however, had never wanted to remarry after the death of his beloved first wife, Isabella of Parma, although he had made some overtures toward Isabella's younger sister Maria Luisa of Parma. Maria Luisa, however, was already promised to the crown prince of Spain and in any case was not interested. Joseph did not find Maria Josepha physically attractive either—he described her in a letter as a "short, fat little person" with "ugly teeth". He admitted, however, that as far as her character was concerned, Maria Josepha was an "irreproachable woman" who loved him, and that he valued her for her positive traits but suffered because he could not love her.
Upon her father-in-law's death on 18 August 1765, Maria Josepha became Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. Her mother-in-law, however, remained the most powerful and important figure in the Empire and at court in Vienna.
Maria Josepha and Joseph's short-lived marriage did not produce any children, but for much of the two years of her marriage, Josepha's state of health led her and others to suppose that she was pregnant. In October 1765, in sentences delicately omitted by Arneth from a published version of a letter to his younger brother Leopold, Joseph wrote : 'As for my empress, there is no change. She has no illness but considerable disturbance. She (Josepha) maybe pregnant though without the slightest swelling. I just don't understand it, and I console myself with the happy life I lead as a bachelor husband.'
Next month, he wrote : 'I live almost as a bachelor, getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning, going to bed at 11, seeing my wife only at table and touching her only in bed.'
Read more about this topic: Maria Josepha Of Bavaria
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“What is marriage, is marriage protection or religion, is marriage renunciation or abundance, is marriage a stepping-stone or an end. What is marriage.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)