Parenting Poll!

[selenak]

The following silliness is the inevitable result of more than a year of intense reading of 18th century memoirs, correspondences and biographies, I'm afraid. Trust me, all these options were actually used in rl.

Poll #24915 18th Century Royal Parenting

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

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How to chastize your son/ likely successor?

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tell him how much life sucks for my arch nemesis, his secret role model
15 (50.0%)

spread rumors he's impotent and can't sire kids of his own
7 (23.3%)

humiliate him early and often (it worked so well with you)
3 (10.0%)

execute his bff/likely lover in front of him
4 (13.3%)

keep it simple: torture him to death
1 (3.3%)

Your daughter's/female first degree relation's marriage....

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needs to produce offspring; I'm sending her brother as marriage councillor and sex therapist
12 (40.0%)

is a personal insult to me; I will never forgive her
0 (0.0%)

will happen, once I've blackmailed and threatened her into it
5 (16.7%)

doesn't stop me from attending orgies with her; she's my favourite!
5 (16.7%)

clearly means that her husband and his realm now belong to me
18 (60.0%)

I ensure sibling harmony among my children by....

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making it clear who my favourite is
4 (13.3%)

encouraging all to join me in the mockery of the unfavourite
0 (0.0%)

having more than threehundred of them - some are bound to get along!
19 (63.3%)

separating the ones who are too close by any means I have
3 (10.0%)

locking up their mother for the next few decades, thus ensuring they know the value of obedience!
4 (13.3%)

Hanover, Hohenzollern, Bourbon, Romanov, Habsburg or Wettin - if you had to, which dysfunctional royal family would you belong to?

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Comments

[kathyh]

I picked Hanover because they are still there despite several name changes to disguise the fact :)

[selenak]

LOL. Point taken, if you mean "still on the throne" by "there". One of the Hohenzollern is currently sueing the state of Brandenburg for money and castles in true insane family style, and the late Otto von Habsburg was a representative in the European Parliament until his death.

BTW, another thing you notice when reading all this 18th century stuff is that this was the era where anti-German paranoia would have paid off, since look who was on the throne everywhere:

Britain - Hannover
Russia - Holstein-Gottorp and Anhalt-Zerbst (their descendants kept marrying Germans, too)
Sweden - Holstein-Gottorp
HRE - Habsburg (Austrians count in this century, as they themselves referred to themselves as Germans - ask MT's son Joseph and Mozart)
Prussia - Hohenzollern
Poland (until 1764) - Wettin (royal House of Saxony)
...and of course:

France: the Archduchess formerly known as Maria Antonia says hi!

[kathyh]

I did mean "still on the throne".

You've forgotten the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily where Maria Antonia's sister was busy schmoozing with Emma Hamilton :)

[selenak]

Mind you, given that Maria Carolina had nineteen children and an idiot husband which meant she was doing much of the governing, the schmoozing time with Emma was severely limited!

[herself_nyc]

I'm spoiled for choice, really. :)

[selenak]

I know.:)

[mildred_of_midgard]

These choices make August the Strong look so functional! Which is maybe good, since he's statistically most likely to be your parent. ;)

[selenak]

Ah, but August actually did both the three hundred children (supposedly) thing and the locking up thing, if you think of it from the pov of the children he had with Anna Constantia, Countess Cosel. G1 was far from the only example in this century! (Wilhelmine's father-in-law also did this, but he wasn't a royal.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Good point, which I had forgotten. I still think I like my odds, though. ;)

I'm also amused that as an early responder, I managed to pick what turned out to be the most popular answer to every single question.

[selenak]

You are so trendy!

[cahn]

Which is maybe good, since he's statistically most likely to be your parent. ;)

HEE.

[taelle]

Maybe Habsburg if I absolutely must choose? Not that I know much, but MT and her family always seemed moderately normal (by the standards of that crowd). And IIRC the marriage counsellor brother actually did find out what the problem was...

[selenak]

Indeed he did! The Habsburgs definitely are in the lead in the first and last category, I see. :)

[cahn]

I feel like MT's family, at least, was just... run-of-the-mill dysfunctional (well, okay, besides the brother sex therapist, which still makes me totally lol, especially the part where he figured out his brother-in-law was doing it wrong) instead of totally scary??

[selenak]

There's undeniably that. I see the Habsburgs are winning as most poll repliers family of choice and when it comes to means by which your chastize your son. Otoh, Fritz is winning in the second category (his brothers-in-law are gritting their teeth), and Team Wettin (i.e. good old August) is in the clear lead when it comes to ensuring sibling harmony.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Notice who's unanimously winning the "NO NO NO DO NOT WANT" competition of the last question! Every other family got some respondents, plus there were write-ins, but nobody wants to be a Hohenzollern!

[selenak]

Heh. No kidding. As for the write-ins, the Skywalkers clearly were, but as another responder pointed out, the Windsors are just Hannovers in disguise if you go matrilinear (and thus don't see Victoria's marriage to Albert as a change of dynasty), not least because if you don't and consider the marriage of a female sovereign the end of the line, the current bunch are all Battenbergs aka Mountbattens anyway.

(The only succesful joke Victoria's grandson Willy ever made remains the one when hearing the cousins had renamed themselves "Windsor" during WWI: "So should I advise theatres to play "The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" then?")

[mildred_of_midgard]

Hmm, I still think "Windsors" counts as a write-in, because while Windsors may be Hanovers, not all Hanovers are Windsors, and thus by choosing the Windsor family, you can opt out of some of the Hanover dysfunction. Y/n?

Willy: Haha.

[selenak]

And opt into Windsor-specific dysfunction, so okay, I'll count them as separate. :)

[bunnyboo]

Habsburg all the way! Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "family circle"...

[selenak]

The Habsburgs would like to point out that this was the Spanish branch more than the Austrian branch. Mind you, not for nothing was the most succesful Habsburg monarch in eons (not just the 18th century) the one whose parents actually had not been related (due to Dad having married a converted Protestant princess)...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Exactly why I specified "non-inbred variant"!

[avrelia]

Well, I chose Romanovs not because I like them the best, but I know how to deal - get the support of the guard by any means available. promise more economical freedom to nobility.

[selenak]

:) You have a point, but I would add "get a good midwife or several" to ensure you don't die gruesomely in labor before the bit with the guard and the nobility can be useful!

[avrelia]

Well, Having good relationship with the mother in law would have been more useful that personal midwives. Especially since that mother in law had the power over the midwives as well everyone else.

Sophie Dorothea took the lessons to heart, and had never had any midwife problems, and basically jump-started the large and sprawling Romanov family

[watervole]

Yoiks! Why is real life so much harder to believe than fiction?

I suppose our expectations are partly created by fiction...

[selenak]

Indeed, and fiction is expected to make sense and offer enough sympathetic characters to balance the horrible ones. :)

[watervole]

I've picked the Ottomans.

When the Kafes system was in operation, it was normal for the coronation of a new sultan to show the coffins of all his brothers...('kafes' means 'cages' - they were kept locked away as reserves, but they expected to die. There was a case of one who did come to the throne, when the guards came for him, he kicked and struggled he though he was going to his execution)


The early history of the Ottoman Empire is littered with succession wars between rival sons of the deceased sultan. It was common for a new sultan to have his brothers killed, including infants, sometimes dozens of them at once. This practice reduced the number of claimants to the throne, leading to several occasions where the Ottoman line seemed destined to end. The confinement of heirs provided security for an incumbent sultan and continuity of the dynasty.