which is possibly related to how they managed to produce a bunch of kids
In general I don't think I understand when it's OK to randomly have kids by some other guy and not. For a royal, right out, I get that. But if you're not royal it's OK? (Also see Emilie.)
As for royals in general, Catherine's supposed to have managed it, but Russia is special. It's hard to tell for sure without a paternity test, though she was clearly doing things that lead to extramarital offspring during her marriage. As we saw for EC2, that was a no-go in Prussia.
As for non-royals, I think a lot depends on the husband. Emilie's husband was supportive of her affairs! Some husbands left the kids to their brother and their brother got the cheating wife locked up in Spandau. *cough* Gundling brothers.
In general, a lot of women's experience historically has depended on whether they had supportive men in their lives or not. I think of my two maternal great-grandmothers, living in the same town in the early 20th century. One (the Mildred after whom this blog is named) got college education, career advice, and bob cuts, and didn't marry until her 30s, when she was the family breadwinner. The other learned to cook and keep house, married in her early teens, produced 15 kids, and never went to school a day in her life or learned to read. Why? Because they had different fathers.
ETA: Also worth clarifying, if it wasn't clear, that Anna Leopoldovna is very much a royal: she's the niece of Anna Ivanovna (she of the ice palace wedding), she was expecting to be named the heir up until the last minute, and instead her 2-month old son was named heir, so now she's the equivalent of queen mother and regent. Does it matter if her husband is the father of the heir, given that the succession right is coming through her and her husband is just some duke? Probably, but not as much as in, say, Prussia. (Or as in Catherine's case, later, when Paul was at pains to prove he was Peter's son and therefore a Romanov by blood.) That said, Ivan VI was conceived a few months after the wedding, and Lynar didn't arrive until he was born, so Ivan is probably Anton's. And most of the rest of the kids were conceived in prison.
Re: Saxon envoys and Russian threesomes
In general I don't think I understand when it's OK to randomly have kids by some other guy and not. For a royal, right out, I get that. But if you're not royal it's OK? (Also see Emilie.)
Sorry, if it wasn't clear, I meant that Anna's marriage to a Brunswick sibling produced a bunch of kids! I.e. Ivan VI and all his siblings who got locked up. Unlike Heinrich and Fritz's marriages, where they not only had no interest in their spouse, they had no interest in the opposite sex, which contributed to the no kids. (As did the trauma. Philippe d'Orléans, Selena is poised to type, managed to produce kids with Liselotte. :P)
As for royals in general, Catherine's supposed to have managed it, but Russia is special. It's hard to tell for sure without a paternity test, though she was clearly doing things that lead to extramarital offspring during her marriage. As we saw for EC2, that was a no-go in Prussia.
As for non-royals, I think a lot depends on the husband. Emilie's husband was supportive of her affairs! Some husbands left the kids to their brother and their brother got the cheating wife locked up in Spandau. *cough* Gundling brothers.
In general, a lot of women's experience historically has depended on whether they had supportive men in their lives or not. I think of my two maternal great-grandmothers, living in the same town in the early 20th century. One (the Mildred after whom this blog is named) got college education, career advice, and bob cuts, and didn't marry until her 30s, when she was the family breadwinner. The other learned to cook and keep house, married in her early teens, produced 15 kids, and never went to school a day in her life or learned to read. Why? Because they had different fathers.
ETA: Also worth clarifying, if it wasn't clear, that Anna Leopoldovna is very much a royal: she's the niece of Anna Ivanovna (she of the ice palace wedding), she was expecting to be named the heir up until the last minute, and instead her 2-month old son was named heir, so now she's the equivalent of queen mother and regent. Does it matter if her husband is the father of the heir, given that the succession right is coming through her and her husband is just some duke? Probably, but not as much as in, say, Prussia. (Or as in Catherine's case, later, when Paul was at pains to prove he was Peter's son and therefore a Romanov by blood.) That said, Ivan VI was conceived a few months after the wedding, and Lynar didn't arrive until he was born, so Ivan is probably Anton's. And most of the rest of the kids were conceived in prison.