A marriage of state in ancient use is a diplomatic marriage or union between two members of different nation-states or internally, between two power blocks, usually in authoritarian societies and is a practice which dates back into pre-history, as far back as early Grecian cultures in western society, and of similar antiquity in other civilizations. The fable of Helen of Troy may be the best known pre-historic tale reporting an incidence of surrendering a female of a ruling line to gain peace or shore up alliances of state between nation-states headed by small oligarchies or acknowledged royalty.
Read more about Marriage Of State: Early European Marriages, Importance of Religion, Early Marriage Negotiations
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or state:
“Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)