So, remember back five years ago when Selena found the Lehndorff family archive in Leipzig, including a document described as:
titled Brautwerbung Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich von Lehndorffs bei der Oberburggräfin von Tettau um ihre Enkelin Catharine du Rosey from the year 1749, i.e. young Lehndorff asking the Countess von Tettau for the hand of her granddaughter Catharine du Rosey (later to become Frau von Katte instead). Summary description "contains among other things description of intrigues", presumably why the match faltered and the family handed her over to the Kattes instead. The dating of 1749 - as opposed to Lehndorff later mention of it as 1751 - is interesting; either he proposed in 1749 and they were an item until 1751, which is unlikely, I mean, one year between proposal and engagement is the done thing, but not two unless you're a royal and there are endless negotiations -, or he's just misremembering. If the later, it might be because his mother quickly proposed an alternate match in 1751 which he rejected.
If all of this sounds like a quick to the Leipzig State Archive would be great: yeah, if one were able to read unorthodox spelling in Rokoko era French hand written letters and note books with the occasional German sentence!
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Also, remember when, 6 months later, I discovered that cousin du Rosey had been born in 1738 and married Ludolf von Katte the Bride-stealer in 1755? And Selena and I were like, "No, those dates *can't* be right!"
selenak: The 1749 date for Lehndorff's proposal is based on the Leipzig state archive dating the box containing the Lehndorff correspondance on that matter to this year, but that's the archive dating, and not having seen the contents of the box, I don't know whether they're basing it on dated letters or just assumptions. They just give it in their online catalogue, which is how I came across it. (Lehndorff himself gives us only the date of 1751 as for when they were supposed to marry - in the diary entry when he meets her again as Frau von Katte - , and a one year or more gap for an engagement among nobles is normal.) And no, I can't see a proposal to an eleven years old being done at that time, either. These weren't the Middle Ages anymore, and the extended Lehndorff-du Rosey-tribe were East Prussian nobility, not royalty.
Well! Yours truly now reads weirdly spelled handwritten French and German, and never tires of taking advantage of that fact. This document ended up being in German, and the Saxon archive actually sent it to me for free, since it was only 4 pages. <3
And here is what I found.
Lehndorff TOTALLY proposed to his 11-year-old cousin Catherine du Rosey in 1749. See, her parents had died (her mother in childbirth with her, according to a genealogy forum where someone said they inspected her baptism record), and she was the heir to a fortune! And Lehndorff with his dead-end job is a fortune-hunter!
Now, Catherine's grandmother, the Oberburggräfin von Tettau said she was only eleven and thus way too young. But Grandma was in big favor of the marriage idea in general, and wanted it to happen someday. But she figured she would die soon, so she wrote in her will that the child's guardians should consider someone descended in the same line as her (i.e., cousin Lehndorff), so that they could get married, once she reached the legal age of consent, which was 14.
Keep in mind Lehndorff is 24.
But the child had a stepmother who received a stipend for taking care of her, and if the child got married, Stepmom would lose the stipend. So she started having Major von Katte (this is Ludolf) over as a guest every day, and promised him her stepdaughter in marriage. (Presumably Ludolf and Stepmom came to an agreement for some kind of financial arrangement in the event of the marriage.)
Grandma, knowing nothing of this, wrote to Fritz asking permission for Lehndorff to marry her granddaughter. But Stepmom ALSO wrote to Fritz asking if Ludolf could marry her. And Stepmom raised the child to favor Ludolf, and never to set foot on Grandma's doorstep.
Keep in mind, Ludolf is in his 40s.
So Fritz sends the court preacher to aks the child what she wants, and if she's really changed her mind about Lehndorff.
Now, throughout the document, she's referred to consistently as "das Kind", except for her initial introduction as "Catherine du Rosey." Because, remember, she is ELEVEN when this starts and THIRTEEN now. I'm referring to her as "the child" throughout my summary of the document, both because that reflects the original language, and to emphasize how young she is. Because English speakers use "girl" of adult women long past the point where they will use "boy" of a man, so I'm using "child" to reinforce that this is not a twenty-three year-old "girl" but an actual child.
The child responds with what I was thinking the whole time as I was deciphering up to this point: "I don't have an inclination toward either of them, or any person; I'm too young to be married! But I especially don't have an inclination toward Major von Katte."
Mildred: That's WHAT I SAID!!
But then, at least according to the view of events that the Lehndorff family preserved--I don't trust this account to be unbiased at all--she's forced to state her preference in front of her stepmother and a bunch of guests, and she's pressured into declaring for Ludolf.
Grandma decides the child must have been pressured into this declaration, so she works on getting herself alone with the kid, and keeps asking, "Don't you WANT to be a good girl and marry Lehndorff??" But the child always says she wants Ludolf.
Mildred: OMG EVERYONE LEAVE HER ALONE, she's THIRTEEN!!
Eventually, Fritz decides Ludolf is the way to go, but the child can only legally get married if Grandma consents. And Fritz hopes Grandma will consent.
And then the child comes to Grandma unsolicited, in the presence of an unrelated woman (not named by the text), whom the Lehndorffs convinced is there to make sure she only says what she was instructed to say. And even though Grandma is sending her money every month and is planning to leave her more in her will (!!), the child uses such disrespectful language that Grandma starts having symptoms that make everyone fear she's having a stroke, and has to be bled within an hour of the conversation.
Mildred: OMG, Grandma and Stepmom both sound like the WORST.
And then Grandma starts researching how she can disinherit the child, or cut her mostly out of the will. And there are some appendices to the text where she's presenting inheritance scenarios, and legal texts are cited in support of the fact that she totally can. Here is an excerpt from a legal text that gets cited in support of Grandma:
In the event that, after secret pre-engagement, the disobedient child, contrary to the will of its parents, should persist in its evil conduct and refuse to deviate from the engagement, then the parents hereby expressly reserve the right against such disobedient child to either disinherit the child completely, but according to the nature and circumstances of the matter, or not owe the child any tribute, marriage property, repayment, donationem propter nuptias, or anything at all.
In conclusion: ESH (everyone sucks here), except the poor girl, and my days of being glad I don't live in the past, especially as a woman, are certainly coming to a middle.
So this, I believe, is why Catherine du Rosey ends up not marrying Ludolf until 1755, when she's 17. I would like to say it's because somebody decided 14 was too young to get married, but obviously nobody in this story gives a shit about that, so I say it's Stepmom wants to hang on to the stipend longer, and she has an agreement with Ludolf.
ASSUMING this is what happened; maybe Stepmom ACTUALLY didn't want the girl getting married at 14, and the Lehndorffs who lost out on the fortune just SAID Stepmom was motivated by evil mercenary motives. I mean, whoever wrote this clearly thought the girl should be pleased to marry whoever Grandma says whenever Grandma says, because Grandma pays her bills. (I won't believe everything bad the account says of Stepmom, but since this part is clearly intended as a defense of Grandma, I'm willing to believe Grandma both pressured the girl using money and the emotional manipulation of "Look how you almost killed me!")
Also, I think we now have more context on another development that's come up in salon: remember when Lehndorff was devastated by the prospect of losing a fortune because his cousin Marschall von Bieberstein died young? Turns out Bieberstein was related to Grandma too, and he was the closest related male individual that would stand to inherit her fortune if Catherine du Rosey got all or mostly disinherited, and Grandma when Grandma was looking for alternatives to the ungrateful and disrespectful granddaughter for her inheritance, she wanted to either leave all her property to Bieberstein in her will, or sell it to him when she was alive, or enter into joint ownership of it with him, so that he was still in possession when she died.
I'm guessing, since Grandma really wanted her property to go to Lehndorff + Catherine via marriage, that part of the reason she was willing to leave it to Bieberstein may have been because Bieberstein was willing to leave it to Lehndorff. In any case, this is where some/all of the fortune Lehndorff lost out on when Bieberstein died came from.
As a reminder, here's how Lehndorff presented events in 1787, with a distinct tone of "sour grapes". Remember that his earlier diary entries are devastated that he didn't get to marry her:
I've had the same experience in money matters. When I was twenty, I was supposed to marry a very rich Fräulein du Rosey. Her family was all for the match while mine nearly had to force me into it. But in the last moment, an evil mother-in-law ruined everything. The young miss had a half brother, Marschall v. Bieberstein, who had much affection for me while he couldn't stand his sister. He wanted to leave all his fortune to me. Then he comes to Berlin, wants to make a last will in my favor, gets small pox, loses his head and dies.
So the two fortunes Lehndorff lost out on in the 1750s were actually related to the same marriage intrigues.
As a reminder, cahn, Ludolf was not a great husband, and Catherine du Rosey ended up leaving him (and taking the kids?).
Poor girl: first she's orphaned, then she's raised by people who care more about money than her, then they start pressuring her into marrying older men starting at age 11, then she ends up caught up in the middle of a family feud over the question of her marriage, then she marries at 17--which is still too young! if this is somebody you've been pressured into marrying since you were ELEVEN--some guy who treats her badly and whom she ends up having to leave.
This also puts a whole new spin on Lehndorff's diary entries saying that after her marriage, they became friends, and insisting that she would have been so much happier with him. I mean, he might have treated her better, but her "decision" to marry Katte instead of him has so much more context now.
ALSO, it's unclear how this account fits with Fontane's story that Fritz decided a different Katte should be married to an heiress, and Ludolf decided to marry her while he was supposed to be checking her out on behalf of his brother.
That said, let me emphasize AGAIN that I don't trust the account in the Lehndorff archives, which is undated and unsigned, to be telling us what really happened. But in any case, the feuding and pressuring are pretty clear. ETA: I say pressuring, because the document confirms that she was only 13 when the 1751 stuff went down, and Lehndorff's diaries make it clear that he did want to marry her in that year and that she was going to marry Ludolf von Katte instead, and given her age, that counts as pressure even if everyone was very calm and nondramatic about it.
Good grief. Poor Catherine! Bad everyone else, including Lehndorff.
Re:
ALSO, it's unclear how this account fits with Fontane's story that Fritz decided a different Katte should be married to an heiress, and Ludolf decided to marry her while he was supposed to be checking her out on behalf of his brother.
Given Fontane also says the Hans Hermmann's half brothers fought their duel for love, and given he has his Katte info from the relations owning the estate mid 19th century, I don't find it that surprising they present all this als Ludolf falling passionately in love as well. Mercenary motives both for the duel to the death and the teenage bride who started out as not even that and a literal child bride look. Also, Fontane is a poet and novelist.
BTW, I just checked how Lehndorff presents the whole thing not in 1787, when he's generally angry at life (due to FW2 having no intention to give him any job, and other things), but in the late 1750s, i.e. far closer to actual events:
I renew my aquaintance with Frau von Katte, my Cousin, whom I was supposed to marry in 1751; family intrigues caused her to give her hand to Herr von Katte instead, a man who does not suit this young and charming woman at all. Consequently, she soon bitterly repented this, as did I, who never had more than 200 000 Taler which would have been the amount she'd have brought into the marriage. She possesses a cheerful temper and many other estimable qualities, which would have made us suit each other completely. As it is impossible for us now to marry, we swear eternal friendship to each other.
And then:
29th birthday of the Princess of Prussia. (I.e. Louise, wife of AW.) All the nobility shows up in gala dress at court. Frau von Katte getes officially presented to the Queen. She is a very charming woman, and I am even more sorry because of her person than I am because of the money.
Re: the marriage with Ludolf and her children:
I receive sad news from Berlin; my cousin Katt has lost her youngest son, a charming boy. (...) The loss of her child causes her great pain; she has a good heart and is a tender mother, but her husband is so repulsive to her that she does not want to have any more children with him.
That she left with the remaining kids is what the local historian told me, I think (not 100 % sure), as the explanation as to why she's not buried in the family crypt and Ludolf is. But if Lehndorff isn't totally making things up re: her feelings for Ludolf, it wouldn't surprises me.
Anyway, as he does not mention her age when they were "supposed to marry", I never would have guessed, kudos once more to the Royal Detective!
Given Fontane also says the Hans Hermmann's half brothers fought their duel for love, and given he has his Katte info from the relations owning the estate mid 19th century, I don't find it that surprising they present all this als Ludolf falling passionately in love as well.
That does make sense. Thank you for reminding me where Fontane got his information from.
Anyway, as he does not mention her age when they were "supposed to marry", I never would have guessed, kudos once more to the Royal Detective!
Indeed, we did not predict this! OTOH, we also couldn't explain the two-year delay in negotiations, and I suppose we just weren't cynical enough to see that those two things go together: if you propose to an 11-year-old, they will make you wait at least 2 years! Btw, legally there could be an understanding that a child under 14 would be married, but you couldn't get formally engaged until 14. Still not great, but better than 11.
I'm also curious how soon after her father died Lehndorff proposed: I have this suspicion that as soon as he did, she was the heiress, and he made his move. But perhaps that's an unfounded suspicion.
Oh, speaking of the two-year wait, I forgot to mention that the document says that Grandma survived until 1751 "against all human hope," which is why there was all that stuff about her will and her trying to make sure the Lehndorff marriage happened even after she died.
P.S. This totally counts as Peter Keith bio work, because the Katte-Rosey marriage is going in as an example of Fritz favoring the Kattes, in contrast to Peter, and I wanted as much evidence that Fritz was involved as I could get, beyond Fontane and one diary entry from Lehndorff. Next, I go back to working my way through the Knyphausen correspondence, and doing another pass at du Moulin's handwriting, looking for errors in my earlier transcription. Plus Fredersdorf: I made good progress today!
I'm also curious how soon after her father died Lehndorff proposed: I have this suspicion that as soon as he did, she was the heiress, and he made his move. But perhaps that's an unfounded suspicion.
I guess it depends on whether or not we believe he wasn't that keen on the marriage originally and it was his family's idea, as he presents it in 1787. He doesn't say it was his idea in the 1750s entries, either, to be fair, but he utterly blames "intrigues" for the lack of the marriage. That he finds a grown up Catherine attractive and charming doesn't mean something either way, since clearly the original proposal was about the money and the money only.
It's worth keeping in mind that Lehndorff at this point was the youngest of the family (born after his father's death), that he didn't expect to inherit the estate (since he had a well and alive older brother), and that he can't expect a military career due to his physical handicap. A political career thus is the only option, and for that, he needs money. Definitely if he becomes an Ambassador (which is one of the things he really fancied), but also if he has a career at court. Even in his current job, as EC's newly appointed Chamberlain, he has, for example, to dress up in style every time he shows up at court. (Remember his sarcastic portrait of his colleague, Count von Wartensleben the sugar hoarder, who only has one glove for the arm on which he has to escort the Queen and otherwise wants to save money, ditto for stealing all that sugar.) So both variations are believable: he's after an heiress, any heiress, even an eleven years old one, because he knows he needs that money, or: his mother and older brother and sisters make it clear that he better marry into some cash. Also, why not both? Presumably Catherine du Rosey was the heiress of choice because the Lehndorffs knew about her from Grandma and they knew how much money Lehndorff could expect, since they were related. Whereas for strangers, you have to introduce yourself and win the family over, and you can make a guess as to how much money she'll actually get because the parents/guardians won't tell you the exact sum until they already seriously consider you as a candidate.
(Ludolf apparantly heard it from Stepmom directly, unless that part isn't true.)
By 1751, Lehndorff is regularly hanging out with the Divine Trio, which must expensive as well. All those masques and parties, etc. So he definitely wants a dowry by then, whether or not he also wants the girl as well as the dowry. Why not try for another heiress? Among other things, it would take time and effort to win someone else's family and the girl herself over, and he's starting to seriously fall in love with Heinrich and to become obsessive, which together with his actual job leaves little time to look for a more suitable (age wise) bride.
(And presumably Ludolf sees no reason to look for an alternative because why should he? Stepmom is on his side, the King is, too, and she has money.)
Did some detective work: Catherine du Rosey's father died in 1744, so 5 years before the proposal. I guess Lehndorff did wait! Uncharitably, until he started to realize he was in a dead-end job. :P
I guess also she would have been 6 when her father died, so I can imagine even in a society where it's marginally okay to propose to 11-year-olds maybe a 6-year-old is NOT okay?
I mean, SD was trying to arrange the marriage between Wilhelmine and Fritz of Wales when they were like, 2 years old, so while Lehndorff is not royalty, I wouldn't be surprised if he just wasn't seriously looking/desperate yet.
Also, in case I have not said this enough, UGH, this poor girl who men keep trying to marry :( Your comment about what all of them must have been thinking or calculating makes this even more clear :(
and he's starting to seriously fall in love with Heinrich and to become obsessive, which together with his actual job leaves little time to look for a more suitable (age wise) bride.
Okay, I did find this funny, though. "Sorry, I'm too busy obsessively falling in love to actually reasonably look for a wife!"
Lehndorff TOTALLY proposed to his 11-year-old cousin Catherine du Rosey in 1749.
Me: Oh nooooo!
she was the heir to a fortune! And Lehndorff with his dead-end job is a fortune-hunter!
Me: ...I guess this makes sense. But still!
they could get married, once she reached the legal age of consent, which was 14.
Keep in mind Lehndorff is 24.
Me: This is not great... but at least it seems like Lehndorff was a mostly reasonable husband, all things considered, so even though this is argh, I guess it could be worse...
Keep in mind, Ludolf is in his 40s.
Me: WELL I GUESS I WAS RIGHT, IT COULD BE WORSE
"I don't have an inclination toward either of them, or any person; I'm too young to be married! But I especially don't have an inclination toward Major von Katte."
This kid is very sensible :( (Seriously, I don't know if I would have been as sensible if I'd been groomed since I was 11!)
So this, I believe, is why Catherine du Rosey ends up not marrying Ludolf until 1755, when she's 17.
*blinks* So, wait, it's sounding like she got disinherited when her grandmother died? And why does Ludolf want to marry her, if she's no longer inheriting anything? ...ugh, maybe he just wants to marry a 17-year-old, ick. UGH.
The best thing I can say for Lehndorff here:
Her family was all for the match while mine nearly had to force me into it.
Which could maybe mean that 1751!Lehndorff -- or at the very least, 1787!Lehndorff -- did have some inkling that maybe this whole marrying an 11-year-old thing was ICK, right? (Not that it stopped him at all, so still ESH (except for the poor kid).)
It's like when we learned about lesbian Isabella of Parma being married to a man she couldn't love, then dying of smallpox + childbirth almost immediately thereafter; and then we learned that she dodged a bullet, because she was almost married to her extremely mentally ill, much older uncle instead!
This kid is very sensible :( (Seriously, I don't know if I would have been as sensible if I'd been groomed since I was 11!)
Right? I kept thinking "Grooming!" the whole time.
*blinks* So, wait, it's sounding like she got disinherited when her grandmother died? And why does Ludolf want to marry her, if she's no longer inheriting anything? ...ugh, maybe he just wants to marry a 17-year-old, ick. UGH.
No, I think she only got disinherited from Grandma's fortune, not what I assume is her other parent's fortune. And since Marschall von Bieberstein died, it's not clear to me that Grandma even managed to disinherit her.
Which could maybe mean that 1751!Lehndorff -- or at the very least, 1787!Lehndorff -- did have some inkling that maybe this whole marrying an 11-year-old thing was ICK, right? (Not that it stopped him at all, so still ESH (except for the poor kid).)
Pardon me for being cynical and thinking this is 1787 Lehndorff, i.e. Lehndorff who's been married twice, having discovered that he had feelings for his actual wives and would rather not give up being married to them. One of whom was 17 when he married her (he was 32); the other was 18 (he was 42). When he wrote the "woe is me" entries, he hadn't yet been married.
Well, he still sounds a bit whistful or at least complimentary about Frau von Katte even after getting married, as in this entry:
I travel with my wife to Wolmirstedt where we've been invited by Obermarschall Wallenrodt. There is a great celebration apropos the wedding of one old General Katt with a Fräulein v. Möllendorf. I mention the age of the newly wedded because his wife the day after the wedding told him: "You haven't heard me come up last night, you were too soundly asleep." All in all, we were thirty. The provincial splendour in their precious old cloths, and the bowings wouldn't end. My sole consolation were one Mrs. General Katt, born v. Truchseß, and my amiable cousin Frau v. Katt, born v. Rosey, who gave us a concert after dinner. We remained dining until 7 pm, then came the concert and the ball. Young Podewils, whom I've brought along, enjoyed himself so thoroughly with Frau v. Angern that he stayed the night. At 2 am, we were happily back home.
I have to say, Lehndorff, bringing up the age factor of the newly wedded here is rich given your own marital plans and history. Though the age gap between both of his actual wives and him were way more standard for the times, i.e. the bride below or only slightly above twenty, the man between thirty and forty.
But to be fair, he does sound fond of both of his wives, and let's not forget, says no to an offer from Heinrich to come with him on his second Russian journey because he wants to stay with wife 2 and children instead, which is no small thing. And with wife 1, when Fritz has finally given him permission to travel abroad he goes to a (German) spa with her instead because she's so sick. And he was a fond father as well. So there were worse husbands than Lehndorff to be had among th Prussian nobility, but good lord, that doesn't make the bargaining and pressuring for little Catherine du Rosey less crass.
Well, he still sounds a bit whistful or at least complimentary about Frau von Katte even after getting married, as in this entry:
Oh, sure, he still likes her as a person. But I think the more time goes on after he's married, the more reconciled he is to how his life turned out, and the more he starts rewriting history in his head.
I have to say, Lehndorff, bringing up the age factor of the newly wedded here is rich given your own marital plans and history. Though the age gap between both of his actual wives and him were way more standard for the times, i.e. the bride below or only slightly above twenty, the man between thirty and forty.
Yeah, I was drafting a reply to cahn about normal age gaps for the period: the man being in his 30s or 40s and the woman being below or only slightly above 20 is standard. Lehndorff never comments on that. He pretty consistently comments on it when a *really* old man, like in his 60s or 70s, gets married to a much younger woman. And if I'm remembering correctly, he wasn't the only one of his time to think that the age gap between a 17-yo Catherine du Rosey and a 40-something Ludolf was normal, but that a 60-year-old man marrying a teenager, especially a younger one, was squicky.
good lord, that doesn't make the bargaining and pressuring for little Catherine du Rosey less crass.
Right, or less damaging to little Catherine, which is the most important thing in my book.
No, I think she only got disinherited from Grandma's fortune, not what I assume is her other parent's fortune. And since Marschall von Bieberstein died, it's not clear to me that Grandma even managed to disinherit her.
Did a little detective work:
Melchior Friedrich Philipp du Rosey (1699-1744) married Marie Katharina von Schlieben (1698-1738), and their daughter was Catherine du Rosey (1738-1813).
Marie Katherina was a widow, and her son from her first marriage was the Marschall von Bieberstein, half-brother of Catherine du Rosey, who died too soon to name Lehndorff in his will.
Marie Katherina was the daughter of Johann Friedrich von Schlieben (1630-1696) and Katharina von Dönhoff (1669-1752). Katharina von Dönhoff is Grandma, and after her husband died, she married Dietrich von Tettau (d. 1730).
Stepmom is Amalie Juliane von Dönhoff (1714-1760). So Grandma and Stepmom are somehow related. Also, Schlieben's first wife is *also* a von Dönhoff, Juliane.
But a little digging isn't showing me how the three von Dönhoff women are related, so I'm going to say distantly. (It would have been interesting and perhaps telling if Grandma and Stepmom had independent family history!)
In conclusion, Grandma is a von Dönhoff, mother of Catherine du Rosey's mother, and Catherine's father is a du Rosey, so Ludolf definitely gets the du Rosey inheritance, and maybe the von Dönhoff inheritance.
Lehndorff is related to the von Dönhoff line, through his father.
Every time we really get into 18th century nobility history, it feels so eerie, because so many of these names show up in the 20th century again. Marion Countess Dönhoff was one of the most famous German women in the 20th century - as a young woman, she was pals with many of the July 20th 1944 conspirators, and later, she became Editor of "Die Zeit", the first female manager of a major newspaper - basically, like Katherine Graham with the Washington Post.
BTW, isn't Lehndorff also related to von Schlieben line - I think one of his sisters married a von Schlieben, something like this, because he later has a Schlieben niece?
BTW, isn't Lehndorff also related to von Schlieben line - I think one of his sisters married a von Schlieben, something like this, because he later has a Schlieben niece?
Good memory! Looks like his sister Marie Eleanore married Karl Leopold von Schlieben in 1747.
Btw, looking at the dates, Grandma von Tettau was 80 the year of the first proposal, and 82/3 when she died, so pretty elderly for her time! No wonder she didn't expect to live two or three more years in 1749.
It's like when we learned about lesbian Isabella of Parma being married to a man she couldn't love, then dying of smallpox + childbirth almost immediately thereafter; and then we learned that she dodged a bullet, because she was almost married to her extremely mentally ill, much older uncle instead!
Yes! It's very very much like that! :(
(Also, this reminds me that as far as I know there was no Isabella of Parma fic for Yuletide this year? Maybe they will request it again next year...)
(Comment composed last night, before selenak weighed in on age gaps.)
...ugh, maybe he just wants to marry a 17-year-old, ick. UGH.
Keep in mind, marrying a 17-yo in this period, for nobility (much less royalty), would not have raised eyebrows. Lehndorff did it twice, as noted above; Katte's father married a 16- or 17-year old (all we know is she gave birth at 17) when he was about 32; Seydlitz was 39 when he married a 16- or 17-year old, Countess Bentinck (since she's on my mind lately) was married at 17 to a 28-year-old; Wilhelmine's daughter was 16 and her husband 20 (her husband started talking about marrying her when she was 12 and he was 16); Émilie was 18 and her husband was 30; Oriane's mother was no more than 15 (15 when she gave birth to her first child) and married to a 39-year-old...and that's not even counting royalty.
There was very little social (as opposed to psychological) reason for a noblewoman *not* to be married at 17, if she had good prospects:
* She wasn't going to university. * She wasn't going to get a job. * She needed financial support, and her parents weren't going to want to support her forever. (Remember FW saying girls should be drowned like kittens, and pessimistically predicting that his daughters wouldn't all find husbands.) * She was of childbearing age. * She was probably going to marry someone her parents picked out anyway, it's not like she needed to wait until she had met The One.
In contrast, women of the lower classes tended to marry at a significantly older age, since neither they nor their husbands could afford to get married until they had worked for a while and saved up. ("Women don't work" has always been a class-based notion; a way for the man to show off that he doesn't need his wife to work, and a way to keep women out of *good* jobs; not an actual constraint on women working.)
And given that noblewomen married young, and tended to die in childbirth, a 40-year-old man looking around for a wife was likely to find women his age were one or more of a) married, b) dead, c) past childbearing age. So an unmarried 16-21-yo was an eminently marriagable candidate. And an older man was more likely to have financial stability, so her parents weren't likely to turn him down, all else being equal (possibly a reason Ludolf got chosen over Lehndorff).
So while men have been icky throughout the ages, and probably many of them found it very convenient that their wives were young and impressionable, you didn't have to be specifically looking to take advantage of someone to look around the marriage market and realize the unmarried women were either at the start of their childbearing years, or widowed, likely with kids, possibly approaching menopause, and to pick the former.
Once your society oppresses women by restricting their alternatives to marriage, the age of marriage drops significantly. As I recall from my classics days, men in Athens were usually around 30 when they married, women about 14-17. This was also the norm in many other historical periods. A 27-year-old woman who wasn't married was an old maid; women by and large tried to avoid that!
The sketchy part in the 18th century would have been the 11-year-old, not the 17-year-old. (If a 17-year-old married a *much* older man, like a 60-year-old, that did raise eyebrows. But it happened; Lehndorff likes to comment on it when it does.)
In conclusion, there are huge *systemic* problems that led to 17-year-old women marrying much older men; if you see an *individual* significantly older man marrying a 17-year-old, he didn't necessarily specifically want a 17-year-old, but may have been responding to social conventions and the pressures of the marriage market. You can't tell.
If you're wondering about Peter and Fredersdorf: both married women in their early 20s, but with a significant age gap. Oriane was 21, Peter 31, when they married, probably subtract a year for the engagement; Caroline Marie Daum was 22, Fredersdorf 44, when they got engaged. Lehndorff never feels the need to comment on this age gap, because it's normal.
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timeasmymeasure
Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-11 04:19 pm (UTC)titled Brautwerbung Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich von Lehndorffs bei der Oberburggräfin von Tettau um ihre Enkelin Catharine du Rosey from the year 1749, i.e. young Lehndorff asking the Countess von Tettau for the hand of her granddaughter Catharine du Rosey (later to become Frau von Katte instead). Summary description "contains among other things description of intrigues", presumably why the match faltered and the family handed her over to the Kattes instead. The dating of 1749 - as opposed to Lehndorff later mention of it as 1751 - is interesting; either he proposed in 1749 and they were an item until 1751, which is unlikely, I mean, one year between proposal and engagement is the done thing, but not two unless you're a royal and there are endless negotiations -, or he's just misremembering. If the later, it might be because his mother quickly proposed an alternate match in 1751 which he rejected.
If all of this sounds like a quick to the Leipzig State Archive would be great: yeah, if one were able to read unorthodox spelling in Rokoko era French hand written letters and note books with the occasional German sentence!
?
Also, remember when, 6 months later, I discovered that cousin du Rosey had been born in 1738 and married Ludolf von Katte the Bride-stealer in 1755? And Selena and I were like, "No, those dates *can't* be right!"
Well! Yours truly now reads weirdly spelled handwritten French and German, and never tires of taking advantage of that fact. This document ended up being in German, and the Saxon archive actually sent it to me for free, since it was only 4 pages. <3
And here is what I found.
Lehndorff TOTALLY proposed to his 11-year-old cousin Catherine du Rosey in 1749. See, her parents had died (her mother in childbirth with her, according to a genealogy forum where someone said they inspected her baptism record), and she was the heir to a fortune! And Lehndorff with his dead-end job is a fortune-hunter!
Now, Catherine's grandmother, the Oberburggräfin von Tettau said she was only eleven and thus way too young. But Grandma was in big favor of the marriage idea in general, and wanted it to happen someday. But she figured she would die soon, so she wrote in her will that the child's guardians should consider someone descended in the same line as her (i.e., cousin Lehndorff), so that they could get married, once she reached the legal age of consent, which was 14.
Keep in mind Lehndorff is 24.
But the child had a stepmother who received a stipend for taking care of her, and if the child got married, Stepmom would lose the stipend. So she started having Major von Katte (this is Ludolf) over as a guest every day, and promised him her stepdaughter in marriage. (Presumably Ludolf and Stepmom came to an agreement for some kind of financial arrangement in the event of the marriage.)
Grandma, knowing nothing of this, wrote to Fritz asking permission for Lehndorff to marry her granddaughter. But Stepmom ALSO wrote to Fritz asking if Ludolf could marry her. And Stepmom raised the child to favor Ludolf, and never to set foot on Grandma's doorstep.
Keep in mind, Ludolf is in his 40s.
So Fritz sends the court preacher to aks the child what she wants, and if she's really changed her mind about Lehndorff.
Now, throughout the document, she's referred to consistently as "das Kind", except for her initial introduction as "Catherine du Rosey." Because, remember, she is ELEVEN when this starts and THIRTEEN now. I'm referring to her as "the child" throughout my summary of the document, both because that reflects the original language, and to emphasize how young she is. Because English speakers use "girl" of adult women long past the point where they will use "boy" of a man, so I'm using "child" to reinforce that this is not a twenty-three year-old "girl" but an actual child.
The child responds with what I was thinking the whole time as I was deciphering up to this point: "I don't have an inclination toward either of them, or any person; I'm too young to be married! But I especially don't have an inclination toward Major von Katte."
Mildred: That's WHAT I SAID!!
But then, at least according to the view of events that the Lehndorff family preserved--I don't trust this account to be unbiased at all--she's forced to state her preference in front of her stepmother and a bunch of guests, and she's pressured into declaring for Ludolf.
Grandma decides the child must have been pressured into this declaration, so she works on getting herself alone with the kid, and keeps asking, "Don't you WANT to be a good girl and marry Lehndorff??" But the child always says she wants Ludolf.
Mildred: OMG EVERYONE LEAVE HER ALONE, she's THIRTEEN!!
Eventually, Fritz decides Ludolf is the way to go, but the child can only legally get married if Grandma consents. And Fritz hopes Grandma will consent.
And then the child comes to Grandma unsolicited, in the presence of an unrelated woman (not named by the text), whom the Lehndorffs convinced is there to make sure she only says what she was instructed to say. And even though Grandma is sending her money every month and is planning to leave her more in her will (!!), the child uses such disrespectful language that Grandma starts having symptoms that make everyone fear she's having a stroke, and has to be bled within an hour of the conversation.
Mildred: OMG, Grandma and Stepmom both sound like the WORST.
And then Grandma starts researching how she can disinherit the child, or cut her mostly out of the will. And there are some appendices to the text where she's presenting inheritance scenarios, and legal texts are cited in support of the fact that she totally can. Here is an excerpt from a legal text that gets cited in support of Grandma:
In the event that, after secret pre-engagement, the disobedient child, contrary to the will of its parents, should persist in its evil conduct and refuse to deviate from the engagement, then the parents hereby expressly reserve the right against such disobedient child to either disinherit the child completely, but according to the nature and circumstances of the matter, or not owe the child any tribute, marriage property, repayment, donationem propter nuptias, or anything at all.
In conclusion: ESH (everyone sucks here), except the poor girl, and my days of being glad I don't live in the past, especially as a woman, are certainly coming to a middle.
So this, I believe, is why Catherine du Rosey ends up not marrying Ludolf until 1755, when she's 17. I would like to say it's because somebody decided 14 was too young to get married, but obviously nobody in this story gives a shit about that, so I say it's Stepmom wants to hang on to the stipend longer, and she has an agreement with Ludolf.
ASSUMING this is what happened; maybe Stepmom ACTUALLY didn't want the girl getting married at 14, and the Lehndorffs who lost out on the fortune just SAID Stepmom was motivated by evil mercenary motives. I mean, whoever wrote this clearly thought the girl should be pleased to marry whoever Grandma says whenever Grandma says, because Grandma pays her bills. (I won't believe everything bad the account says of Stepmom, but since this part is clearly intended as a defense of Grandma, I'm willing to believe Grandma both pressured the girl using money and the emotional manipulation of "Look how you almost killed me!")
Also, I think we now have more context on another development that's come up in salon: remember when Lehndorff was devastated by the prospect of losing a fortune because his cousin Marschall von Bieberstein died young? Turns out Bieberstein was related to Grandma too, and he was the closest related male individual that would stand to inherit her fortune if Catherine du Rosey got all or mostly disinherited, and Grandma when Grandma was looking for alternatives to the ungrateful and disrespectful granddaughter for her inheritance, she wanted to either leave all her property to Bieberstein in her will, or sell it to him when she was alive, or enter into joint ownership of it with him, so that he was still in possession when she died.
I'm guessing, since Grandma really wanted her property to go to Lehndorff + Catherine via marriage, that part of the reason she was willing to leave it to Bieberstein may have been because Bieberstein was willing to leave it to Lehndorff. In any case, this is where some/all of the fortune Lehndorff lost out on when Bieberstein died came from.
As a reminder, here's how Lehndorff presented events in 1787, with a distinct tone of "sour grapes". Remember that his earlier diary entries are devastated that he didn't get to marry her:
I've had the same experience in money matters. When I was twenty, I was supposed to marry a very rich Fräulein du Rosey. Her family was all for the match while mine nearly had to force me into it. But in the last moment, an evil mother-in-law ruined everything. The young miss had a half brother, Marschall v. Bieberstein, who had much affection for me while he couldn't stand his sister. He wanted to leave all his fortune to me. Then he comes to Berlin, wants to make a last will in my favor, gets small pox, loses his head and dies.
So the two fortunes Lehndorff lost out on in the 1750s were actually related to the same marriage intrigues.
As a reminder,
Poor girl: first she's orphaned, then she's raised by people who care more about money than her, then they start pressuring her into marrying older men starting at age 11, then she ends up caught up in the middle of a family feud over the question of her marriage, then she marries at 17--which is still too young! if this is somebody you've been pressured into marrying since you were ELEVEN--some guy who treats her badly and whom she ends up having to leave.
This also puts a whole new spin on Lehndorff's diary entries saying that after her marriage, they became friends, and insisting that she would have been so much happier with him. I mean, he might have treated her better, but her "decision" to marry Katte instead of him has so much more context now.
ALSO, it's unclear how this account fits with Fontane's story that Fritz decided a different Katte should be married to an heiress, and Ludolf decided to marry her while he was supposed to be checking her out on behalf of his brother.
That said, let me emphasize AGAIN that I don't trust the account in the Lehndorff archives, which is undated and unsigned, to be telling us what really happened. But in any case, the feuding and pressuring are pretty clear. ETA: I say pressuring, because the document confirms that she was only 13 when the 1751 stuff went down, and Lehndorff's diaries make it clear that he did want to marry her in that year and that she was going to marry Ludolf von Katte instead, and given her age, that counts as pressure even if everyone was very calm and nondramatic about it.
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-11 06:30 pm (UTC)Re:
ALSO, it's unclear how this account fits with Fontane's story that Fritz decided a different Katte should be married to an heiress, and Ludolf decided to marry her while he was supposed to be checking her out on behalf of his brother.
Given Fontane also says the Hans Hermmann's half brothers fought their duel for love, and given he has his Katte info from the relations owning the estate mid 19th century, I don't find it that surprising they present all this als Ludolf falling passionately in love as well. Mercenary motives both for the duel to the death and the teenage bride who started out as not even that and a literal child bride look. Also, Fontane is a poet and novelist.
BTW, I just checked how Lehndorff presents the whole thing not in 1787, when he's generally angry at life (due to FW2 having no intention to give him any job, and other things), but in the late 1750s, i.e. far closer to actual events:
I renew my aquaintance with Frau von Katte, my Cousin, whom I was supposed to marry in 1751; family intrigues caused her to give her hand to Herr von Katte instead, a man who does not suit this young and charming woman at all. Consequently, she soon bitterly repented this, as did I, who never had more than 200 000 Taler which would have been the amount she'd have brought into the marriage. She possesses a cheerful temper and many other estimable qualities, which would have made us suit each other completely. As it is impossible for us now to marry, we swear eternal friendship to each other.
And then:
29th birthday of the Princess of Prussia. (I.e. Louise, wife of AW.) All the nobility shows up in gala dress at court. Frau von Katte getes officially presented to the Queen. She is a very charming woman, and I am even more sorry because of her person than I am because of the money.
Re: the marriage with Ludolf and her children:
I receive sad news from Berlin; my cousin Katt has lost her youngest son, a charming boy. (...) The loss of her child causes her great pain; she has a good heart and is a tender mother, but her husband is so repulsive to her that she does not want to have any more children with him.
That she left with the remaining kids is what the local historian told me, I think (not 100 % sure), as the explanation as to why she's not buried in the family crypt and Ludolf is. But if Lehndorff isn't totally making things up re: her feelings for Ludolf, it wouldn't surprises me.
Anyway, as he does not mention her age when they were "supposed to marry", I never would have guessed, kudos once more to the Royal Detective!
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-11 06:49 pm (UTC)That does make sense. Thank you for reminding me where Fontane got his information from.
Anyway, as he does not mention her age when they were "supposed to marry", I never would have guessed, kudos once more to the Royal Detective!
Indeed, we did not predict this! OTOH, we also couldn't explain the two-year delay in negotiations, and I suppose we just weren't cynical enough to see that those two things go together: if you propose to an 11-year-old, they will make you wait at least 2 years! Btw, legally there could be an understanding that a child under 14 would be married, but you couldn't get formally engaged until 14. Still not great, but better than 11.
I'm also curious how soon after her father died Lehndorff proposed: I have this suspicion that as soon as he did, she was the heiress, and he made his move. But perhaps that's an unfounded suspicion.
Oh, speaking of the two-year wait, I forgot to mention that the document says that Grandma survived until 1751 "against all human hope," which is why there was all that stuff about her will and her trying to make sure the Lehndorff marriage happened even after she died.
P.S. This totally counts as Peter Keith bio work, because the Katte-Rosey marriage is going in as an example of Fritz favoring the Kattes, in contrast to Peter, and I wanted as much evidence that Fritz was involved as I could get, beyond Fontane and one diary entry from Lehndorff. Next, I go back to working my way through the Knyphausen correspondence, and doing another pass at du Moulin's handwriting, looking for errors in my earlier transcription. Plus Fredersdorf: I made good progress today!
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 12:44 pm (UTC)I guess it depends on whether or not we believe he wasn't that keen on the marriage originally and it was his family's idea, as he presents it in 1787. He doesn't say it was his idea in the 1750s entries, either, to be fair, but he utterly blames "intrigues" for the lack of the marriage. That he finds a grown up Catherine attractive and charming doesn't mean something either way, since clearly the original proposal was about the money and the money only.
It's worth keeping in mind that Lehndorff at this point was the youngest of the family (born after his father's death), that he didn't expect to inherit the estate (since he had a well and alive older brother), and that he can't expect a military career due to his physical handicap. A political career thus is the only option, and for that, he needs money. Definitely if he becomes an Ambassador (which is one of the things he really fancied), but also if he has a career at court. Even in his current job, as EC's newly appointed Chamberlain, he has, for example, to dress up in style every time he shows up at court. (Remember his sarcastic portrait of his colleague, Count von Wartensleben the sugar hoarder, who only has one glove for the arm on which he has to escort the Queen and otherwise wants to save money, ditto for stealing all that sugar.) So both variations are believable: he's after an heiress, any heiress, even an eleven years old one, because he knows he needs that money, or: his mother and older brother and sisters make it clear that he better marry into some cash. Also, why not both? Presumably Catherine du Rosey was the heiress of choice because the Lehndorffs knew about her from Grandma and they knew how much money Lehndorff could expect, since they were related. Whereas for strangers, you have to introduce yourself and win the family over, and you can make a guess as to how much money she'll actually get because the parents/guardians won't tell you the exact sum until they already seriously consider you as a candidate.
(Ludolf apparantly heard it from Stepmom directly, unless that part isn't true.)
By 1751, Lehndorff is regularly hanging out with the Divine Trio, which must expensive as well. All those masques and parties, etc. So he definitely wants a dowry by then, whether or not he also wants the girl as well as the dowry. Why not try for another heiress? Among other things, it would take time and effort to win someone else's family and the girl herself over, and he's starting to seriously fall in love with Heinrich and to become obsessive, which together with his actual job leaves little time to look for a more suitable (age wise) bride.
(And presumably Ludolf sees no reason to look for an alternative because why should he? Stepmom is on his side, the King is, too, and she has money.)
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 01:33 pm (UTC)Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-15 05:19 am (UTC)Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-15 10:47 am (UTC)Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-15 05:21 am (UTC)and he's starting to seriously fall in love with Heinrich and to become obsessive, which together with his actual job leaves little time to look for a more suitable (age wise) bride.
Okay, I did find this funny, though. "Sorry, I'm too busy obsessively falling in love to actually reasonably look for a wife!"
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 01:04 am (UTC)Me: Oh nooooo!
she was the heir to a fortune! And Lehndorff with his dead-end job is a fortune-hunter!
Me: ...I guess this makes sense. But still!
they could get married, once she reached the legal age of consent, which was 14.
Keep in mind Lehndorff is 24.
Me: This is not great... but at least it seems like Lehndorff was a mostly reasonable husband, all things considered, so even though this is argh, I guess it could be worse...
Keep in mind, Ludolf is in his 40s.
Me: WELL I GUESS I WAS RIGHT, IT COULD BE WORSE
"I don't have an inclination toward either of them, or any person; I'm too young to be married! But I especially don't have an inclination toward Major von Katte."
This kid is very sensible :( (Seriously, I don't know if I would have been as sensible if I'd been groomed since I was 11!)
So this, I believe, is why Catherine du Rosey ends up not marrying Ludolf until 1755, when she's 17.
*blinks* So, wait, it's sounding like she got disinherited when her grandmother died? And why does Ludolf want to marry her, if she's no longer inheriting anything? ...ugh, maybe he just wants to marry a 17-year-old, ick. UGH.
The best thing I can say for Lehndorff here:
Her family was all for the match while mine nearly had to force me into it.
Which could maybe mean that 1751!Lehndorff -- or at the very least, 1787!Lehndorff -- did have some inkling that maybe this whole marrying an 11-year-old thing was ICK, right? (Not that it stopped him at all, so still ESH (except for the poor kid).)
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 01:35 am (UTC)It's like when we learned about lesbian Isabella of Parma being married to a man she couldn't love, then dying of smallpox + childbirth almost immediately thereafter; and then we learned that she dodged a bullet, because she was almost married to her extremely mentally ill, much older uncle instead!
This kid is very sensible :( (Seriously, I don't know if I would have been as sensible if I'd been groomed since I was 11!)
Right? I kept thinking "Grooming!" the whole time.
*blinks* So, wait, it's sounding like she got disinherited when her grandmother died? And why does Ludolf want to marry her, if she's no longer inheriting anything? ...ugh, maybe he just wants to marry a 17-year-old, ick. UGH.
No, I think she only got disinherited from Grandma's fortune, not what I assume is her other parent's fortune. And since Marschall von Bieberstein died, it's not clear to me that Grandma even managed to disinherit her.
Which could maybe mean that 1751!Lehndorff -- or at the very least, 1787!Lehndorff -- did have some inkling that maybe this whole marrying an 11-year-old thing was ICK, right? (Not that it stopped him at all, so still ESH (except for the poor kid).)
Pardon me for being cynical and thinking this is 1787 Lehndorff, i.e. Lehndorff who's been married twice, having discovered that he had feelings for his actual wives and would rather not give up being married to them. One of whom was 17 when he married her (he was 32); the other was 18 (he was 42). When he wrote the "woe is me" entries, he hadn't yet been married.
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 12:58 pm (UTC)I travel with my wife to Wolmirstedt where we've been invited by Obermarschall Wallenrodt. There is a great celebration apropos the wedding of one old General Katt with a Fräulein v. Möllendorf. I mention the age of the newly wedded because his wife the day after the wedding told him: "You haven't heard me come up last night, you were too soundly asleep." All in all, we were thirty. The provincial splendour in their precious old cloths, and the bowings wouldn't end. My sole consolation were one Mrs. General Katt, born v. Truchseß, and my amiable cousin Frau v. Katt, born v. Rosey, who gave us a concert after dinner. We remained dining until 7 pm, then came the concert and the ball. Young Podewils, whom I've brought along, enjoyed himself so thoroughly with Frau v. Angern that he stayed the night. At 2 am, we were happily back home.
I have to say, Lehndorff, bringing up the age factor of the newly wedded here is rich given your own marital plans and history. Though the age gap between both of his actual wives and him were way more standard for the times, i.e. the bride below or only slightly above twenty, the man between thirty and forty.
But to be fair, he does sound fond of both of his wives, and let's not forget, says no to an offer from Heinrich to come with him on his second Russian journey because he wants to stay with wife 2 and children instead, which is no small thing. And with wife 1, when Fritz has finally given him permission to travel abroad he goes to a (German) spa with her instead because she's so sick. And he was a fond father as well. So there were worse husbands than Lehndorff to be had among th Prussian nobility, but good lord, that doesn't make the bargaining and pressuring for little Catherine du Rosey less crass.
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 01:10 pm (UTC)Oh, sure, he still likes her as a person. But I think the more time goes on after he's married, the more reconciled he is to how his life turned out, and the more he starts rewriting history in his head.
I have to say, Lehndorff, bringing up the age factor of the newly wedded here is rich given your own marital plans and history. Though the age gap between both of his actual wives and him were way more standard for the times, i.e. the bride below or only slightly above twenty, the man between thirty and forty.
Yeah, I was drafting a reply to
good lord, that doesn't make the bargaining and pressuring for little Catherine du Rosey less crass.
Right, or less damaging to little Catherine, which is the most important thing in my book.
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 01:48 pm (UTC)Did a little detective work:
Melchior Friedrich Philipp du Rosey (1699-1744) married Marie Katharina von Schlieben (1698-1738), and their daughter was Catherine du Rosey (1738-1813).
Marie Katherina was a widow, and her son from her first marriage was the Marschall von Bieberstein, half-brother of Catherine du Rosey, who died too soon to name Lehndorff in his will.
Marie Katherina was the daughter of Johann Friedrich von Schlieben (1630-1696) and Katharina von Dönhoff (1669-1752). Katharina von Dönhoff is Grandma, and after her husband died, she married Dietrich von Tettau (d. 1730).
Stepmom is Amalie Juliane von Dönhoff (1714-1760). So Grandma and Stepmom are somehow related. Also, Schlieben's first wife is *also* a von Dönhoff, Juliane.
But a little digging isn't showing me how the three von Dönhoff women are related, so I'm going to say distantly. (It would have been interesting and perhaps telling if Grandma and Stepmom had independent family history!)
In conclusion, Grandma is a von Dönhoff, mother of Catherine du Rosey's mother, and Catherine's father is a du Rosey, so Ludolf definitely gets the du Rosey inheritance, and maybe the von Dönhoff inheritance.
Lehndorff is related to the von Dönhoff line, through his father.
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 02:24 pm (UTC)BTW, isn't Lehndorff also related to von Schlieben line - I think one of his sisters married a von Schlieben, something like this, because he later has a Schlieben niece?
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 05:19 pm (UTC)BTW, isn't Lehndorff also related to von Schlieben line - I think one of his sisters married a von Schlieben, something like this, because he later has a Schlieben niece?
Good memory! Looks like his sister Marie Eleanore married Karl Leopold von Schlieben in 1747.
Btw, looking at the dates, Grandma von Tettau was 80 the year of the first proposal, and 82/3 when she died, so pretty elderly for her time! No wonder she didn't expect to live two or three more years in 1749.
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-15 05:14 am (UTC)Yes! It's very very much like that! :(
(Also, this reminds me that as far as I know there was no Isabella of Parma fic for Yuletide this year? Maybe they will request it again next year...)
Re: Lehndorff's one who got away
Date: 2025-01-12 01:31 pm (UTC)...ugh, maybe he just wants to marry a 17-year-old, ick. UGH.
Keep in mind, marrying a 17-yo in this period, for nobility (much less royalty), would not have raised eyebrows. Lehndorff did it twice, as noted above; Katte's father married a 16- or 17-year old (all we know is she gave birth at 17) when he was about 32; Seydlitz was 39 when he married a 16- or 17-year old, Countess Bentinck (since she's on my mind lately) was married at 17 to a 28-year-old; Wilhelmine's daughter was 16 and her husband 20 (her husband started talking about marrying her when she was 12 and he was 16); Émilie was 18 and her husband was 30; Oriane's mother was no more than 15 (15 when she gave birth to her first child) and married to a 39-year-old...and that's not even counting royalty.
There was very little social (as opposed to psychological) reason for a noblewoman *not* to be married at 17, if she had good prospects:
* She wasn't going to university.
* She wasn't going to get a job.
* She needed financial support, and her parents weren't going to want to support her forever. (Remember FW saying girls should be drowned like kittens, and pessimistically predicting that his daughters wouldn't all find husbands.)
* She was of childbearing age.
* She was probably going to marry someone her parents picked out anyway, it's not like she needed to wait until she had met The One.
In contrast, women of the lower classes tended to marry at a significantly older age, since neither they nor their husbands could afford to get married until they had worked for a while and saved up. ("Women don't work" has always been a class-based notion; a way for the man to show off that he doesn't need his wife to work, and a way to keep women out of *good* jobs; not an actual constraint on women working.)
And given that noblewomen married young, and tended to die in childbirth, a 40-year-old man looking around for a wife was likely to find women his age were one or more of a) married, b) dead, c) past childbearing age. So an unmarried 16-21-yo was an eminently marriagable candidate. And an older man was more likely to have financial stability, so her parents weren't likely to turn him down, all else being equal (possibly a reason Ludolf got chosen over Lehndorff).
So while men have been icky throughout the ages, and probably many of them found it very convenient that their wives were young and impressionable, you didn't have to be specifically looking to take advantage of someone to look around the marriage market and realize the unmarried women were either at the start of their childbearing years, or widowed, likely with kids, possibly approaching menopause, and to pick the former.
Once your society oppresses women by restricting their alternatives to marriage, the age of marriage drops significantly. As I recall from my classics days, men in Athens were usually around 30 when they married, women about 14-17. This was also the norm in many other historical periods. A 27-year-old woman who wasn't married was an old maid; women by and large tried to avoid that!
The sketchy part in the 18th century would have been the 11-year-old, not the 17-year-old. (If a 17-year-old married a *much* older man, like a 60-year-old, that did raise eyebrows. But it happened; Lehndorff likes to comment on it when it does.)
In conclusion, there are huge *systemic* problems that led to 17-year-old women marrying much older men; if you see an *individual* significantly older man marrying a 17-year-old, he didn't necessarily specifically want a 17-year-old, but may have been responding to social conventions and the pressures of the marriage market. You can't tell.
If you're wondering about Peter and Fredersdorf: both married women in their early 20s, but with a significant age gap. Oriane was 21, Peter 31, when they married, probably subtract a year for the engagement; Caroline Marie Daum was 22, Fredersdorf 44, when they got engaged. Lehndorff never feels the need to comment on this age gap, because it's normal.