Marriage Diplomacy
John E. Watkins
Marriage alliances were a common feature of the premodern diplomatic landscape. Dynasties used them for multiple purposes: to ensure successions, obtain properties, expand their political influence, heighten international prestige, balance against threat or bandwagon with burgeoning power, and make peace former enemy. Although marriage sometimes worked well, they subject accidents death, infertility, erotic caprice, shifts in regional canonical strong‐arming by powerful ecclesiastics. continued intermarry through twentieth century, but significance marriages waned as power passed from monarchs parliaments elected ministers state.
The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy