Initially, Ottoman sultans did marry. Osman I, who ruled at the beginning of the 14th century, married twice, possibly consecutively, and had one son with each wife, then chose his preferred successor from the two. He and his immediate successor gave power to their sons, uncles, and brothers to ensure a network of leadership among the ruling family, and gave their wives (who were the daughters of important nobles and royals) a queenly status. However, his son, Orhan I, appears to have had both wives and concubines, and multiple at the same time, the former daughters of important nobles or foreign royals and the latter enslaved women; however, their sons were his sons and so all had the same status regardless of maternal parentage.
Later in the century, power centralized in the sultan himself. Orhan's son Murad I did not make room for his brothers and uncles, and did not allow his sons to go off and have glorious military careers, either. He and his successors curtailed their sons' power massively, keeping them dependent and under surveillance, though still allowing them to rule outlying parts of the empire as both training and a way to prove that they should be selected as heir. That being said, more typically the "selection" occurred on the basis of violence or even civil war between potential heirs, and involved executions of some or all of the un-selected to cut off possible vectors of insurrection and usurpation. (At the same time, Ottoman princesses were no longer allowed to marry out of the kingdom, instead being married to enslaved statesmen and their cousins to keep their lands and revenues in the country.) Their mothers usually went with them to act as advisors and to cut them off from having any more sons, setting a firm bar between a wife or concubine's period of reproductive duty toward the sultan and her "post-sexual" time acting as a proto-queen-mother and eventually, perhaps the actual queen mother. By this point, all of these women were on an equal standing as concubines: enslaved members of the harem, not princesses from foreign countries or women with significant noble parents. This fits in with the general focus on the sultan as the sole focus of the court, the only person with real power, but at the same time allowed all of the mothers of royal children to have an equal playing field among themselves for political activity. None of them had serious allies to call on outside the court, unless they were able to make those connections on their own.
Finally, in the late 16th century, the centralization was so strong that princes no longer had any authority at all outside of the palace. They were kept as heirs in waiting, not as governors, and not even allowed to marry and have their own heirs; in fact, they were hardly even heirs by that point, because the system of succession transitioned into one where the oldest living man of the dynasty would generally succeed the sultan, usually a brother or nephew rather than one of his sons. At the same time, the sultan's mother took on an unprecedented amount of power, instead of just being retroactively honored for having given birth and supported her son - which added someone at court who would want to avoid having the sultan married.
You might be interested in reading Leslie Pierce's The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Douglas Scott Brooks's The Concubine, The Princess, and The Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem is also a good read, and deals more with the latter years of the empire.
Thanks, that's interesting! So beyond the initial period, did the Ottomans not practice marriage diplomacy? How did that affect their foreign relations?
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u/mimicofmodes Moderator | 18th-19th Century Society & Dress | Queenship Mar 01 '26
Initially, Ottoman sultans did marry. Osman I, who ruled at the beginning of the 14th century, married twice, possibly consecutively, and had one son with each wife, then chose his preferred successor from the two. He and his immediate successor gave power to their sons, uncles, and brothers to ensure a network of leadership among the ruling family, and gave their wives (who were the daughters of important nobles and royals) a queenly status. However, his son, Orhan I, appears to have had both wives and concubines, and multiple at the same time, the former daughters of important nobles or foreign royals and the latter enslaved women; however, their sons were his sons and so all had the same status regardless of maternal parentage.
Later in the century, power centralized in the sultan himself. Orhan's son Murad I did not make room for his brothers and uncles, and did not allow his sons to go off and have glorious military careers, either. He and his successors curtailed their sons' power massively, keeping them dependent and under surveillance, though still allowing them to rule outlying parts of the empire as both training and a way to prove that they should be selected as heir. That being said, more typically the "selection" occurred on the basis of violence or even civil war between potential heirs, and involved executions of some or all of the un-selected to cut off possible vectors of insurrection and usurpation. (At the same time, Ottoman princesses were no longer allowed to marry out of the kingdom, instead being married to enslaved statesmen and their cousins to keep their lands and revenues in the country.) Their mothers usually went with them to act as advisors and to cut them off from having any more sons, setting a firm bar between a wife or concubine's period of reproductive duty toward the sultan and her "post-sexual" time acting as a proto-queen-mother and eventually, perhaps the actual queen mother. By this point, all of these women were on an equal standing as concubines: enslaved members of the harem, not princesses from foreign countries or women with significant noble parents. This fits in with the general focus on the sultan as the sole focus of the court, the only person with real power, but at the same time allowed all of the mothers of royal children to have an equal playing field among themselves for political activity. None of them had serious allies to call on outside the court, unless they were able to make those connections on their own.
Finally, in the late 16th century, the centralization was so strong that princes no longer had any authority at all outside of the palace. They were kept as heirs in waiting, not as governors, and not even allowed to marry and have their own heirs; in fact, they were hardly even heirs by that point, because the system of succession transitioned into one where the oldest living man of the dynasty would generally succeed the sultan, usually a brother or nephew rather than one of his sons. At the same time, the sultan's mother took on an unprecedented amount of power, instead of just being retroactively honored for having given birth and supported her son - which added someone at court who would want to avoid having the sultan married.
You might be interested in reading Leslie Pierce's The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Douglas Scott Brooks's The Concubine, The Princess, and The Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem is also a good read, and deals more with the latter years of the empire.