Royal marriages were a funnel to power

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In July 1810, a princess of Mewar—dressed in her best silks and jewels—consumed a cup of poison. Despite her appearance, it was not a pretty sight.

Thrice she retched up the liquid, so eventually it was mixed with opium. This formula worked: Krishna Kumari was pronounced dead. It was not suicide on personal grounds, though; she had to die for “honour".

As a child, the 16-year-old had been betrothed to the Jodhpur maharajah. Except he popped soon after. Due to some political jostling in the region, her father announced her engagement next to the ruler of Jaipur.

Only that dead Jodhpur’s brother insisted the betrothal with his house be resurrected. Mercenaries and outside forces got involved—the prestige of not just Mewar but the other two dynasties was at stake. Years passed, and there was violence, with real risk of escalation.

So, a solution was reached: the elimination of the princess. She would marry nobody. And that way nobody’s “honour" could be damaged.

Krishna Kumari’s story transfixed India’s elite. In fact, by 1826 a south Indian Brahmin serving a Kerala prince would write what is likely the first English play by a “native", on the subject—a text recently republished by the scholar Rahul Sagar. But it got me thinking on how marriage itself in political spaces was never just about two people joining in holy matrimony.

For one, ideas of privacy were fluid. In France, the 14-year-old Catherine de’ Medici’s union with her husband in 1533 was consummated in the august presence of her father-in-law. For the marriage was an alliance, and consummation had to be confirmed to seal the rest of the package.