January 29, 2023 20:15
Having learned the age, the girls of that time become really sorry.
In the TV series “The Magnificent Century”, viewers are used to seeing already mature, well-formed women as concubines, who tried with all their might to capture the attention of the Sultan. However, the scriptwriters of the series have gone quite far from reality, which was completely different. Girls, especially representatives of the Ottoman dynasty, were obliged to give birth to an heir as early as possible. There were a number of reasons for this, the main of which was the outbreak of smallpox and the inability to cure it. As a result, the death rate of heirs is high.
If you believe the records from the harem, then Gulbahar-Khatun, the grandmother of Suleiman the Magnificent, who gave birth to her first child Selim I at the age of 12, can be considered a kind of “record holder”. The Sultan’s wife reportedly had three children, two boys and one girl.
Remarkably, the sisters of the Sultan were also obliged to give birth to a child as soon as possible – this was done in order to create an alliance between their child and the offspring of another influential dynasty in order to improve relations between countries.
