Marriage
In 1878, when Anastasia was not yet eighteen, her mother and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, arranged her marriage with Maria's eldest brother, Friedrich Franz, Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He was 27 years-old and heir to the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in northern Germany. Their grandmothers, Princesses Alexandrine and Charlotte of Prussia, were sisters, and Friedrich Franz was also a direct descendant of Tsar Paul I of Russia.
In the spring of 1878, Prince Friedrich Franz arrived in Tiflis to ask for her hand. He was rich, the heir of a German Grand Duchy and good-hearted, but had delicate health, suffered from asthma, a rash and a weak heart. The engagement was resented by Anastasia's brothers, who did not want to be separated from her. Anastasia herself was not happy with her fiancé, appalled by his skin condition. He used to get periodic attacks of eczema on the face and body, which confined him into complete seclusion for long periods. As was often the case with dynastic marriages, she was given no choice by her parents, who wanted to secure a good position for her. Accordingly, the betrothal was announced on 4 May, and, in October, Anastasia and her family traveled to Saint Petersburg to prepare for the wedding. The marriage took place on 24 January 1879 in the Winter Palace, and she was given away by her uncle, Tsar Alexander II; there was first an Orthodox ceremony, and then a Protestant service. The marriage was a big affair, and representatives of all the ruling houses of Europe attended.
Read more about this topic: Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna Of Russia
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.”
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“Adultery is the vice of equivocation.
It is not marriage but a mockery of it, a merging that mixes love and dread together like jackstraws. There is no understanding of contentment in adultery.... You belong to each other in what together you’ve made of a third identity that almost immediately cancels your own. There is a law in art that proves it. Two colors are proven complimentary only when forming that most desolate of all colors—neutral gray.”
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