Maybe it’s just me, but I honestly don’t see that many historical shows where they show the women being nervous about having a child. Like in here, Mary says she’ll be happy once the child is born and breathing.
Yeah, one thing that is very good and authentical about this show is that they have a kinda contemporary attitude towards childbearing. Max and Mary will also have a discussion about it. They show the cruel reality of this: big danger to the women, high infancy death rate, disappointment if it's a girl.
back then women had to pretend childbirth was normal and easy and that they could do it over and over. No one wanted to hear the complaints or fears of women, no one would cater to them. Stupid patriarchy was bullshit
I always wonder how much they knew about details of pregnancy and women's cycles. Of course they knew the signs and couldn't explain many things but they did count on experience of women in their circles. It must have been quite terrifying to go through labour back then.
Are you seriously that stupid this is a legitimate question for you??? The Aborigines were the only people on earth who didn't understand that... I mean animal husbandry is tens of thousands year old technology where White people shaped whole species into becoming exactly what we wanted across generations of time. Yet somehow think that something as simple as pregnancy was a mystery to them??? They obviously knew about pregnancy... that's when they made couples get married during this time period (centuries before & after included.) According to 11th-17th century English Parish birth/marriage records... 4 out 5 girl were pregnant on their wedding day (65% definitely pregnant about 30% obviously showing then another 15% who were possibly pregnant with how the dates lined up.) Nobility getting married before sex was the rarity & done mainly since paternity needed to be much more certain than for the other 99% of the population.
Its pretty basic... and easy way to tell. It's how they knew when regular people had to get married... according to 11th-17th century English Parish birth/marriage records, something close to 4 out of 5 girls were pregnant on their wedding day. 30% of them obviously pregnant at the altar... there used to be a saying about "how the first child comes the quickest" tgey said as a joke cause the gap between marriage & birth was less than 9 months for the overwhelming majority of women.
He’s quite a famous German actor, Jannis Niewöhner. Also I love that it’s a German/Austrian/French production and Mar of Burgundy is in fact played by a French actress.
Mary seems very cautious about the pregnancy. We can´t say whether she feels afraid or whether she fears she won´t produce a boy. We can see during the conversation girls had little value at the time.
Girls definitely had a value... but since the whole political crisis they are facing requires a Male Heir, then they need a Male or the whole Nation collapses. It's a Male hereditary title & there is no Male for the title... Mary as a woman doesn't qualify for being the Duchess of Burgundy unlike her other titles & Maximilian has no claim to the title regardless of his being the future Emperor over everyone. It's why both of their fathers were trying to marry them together before her fathers death... neither of their fathers could be a real Emperor when they clashed for the title themselves but by marrying them then their grandson could achieve what they couldn't (unfortunately Marys early death ruined that plan or Germany would have been united centuries sooner.)
While their daughter never had children, she raised her brother's kids plus help rule parts of the realm for her father, and nephews. She was considered very valuable and wise.
It was unfortunate that after two successful childbirths (the third child died young but the mother was not physically affected), they became a bit unguarded. I cannot understand why so many European queens and ladies went hunting during pregnancy - probably the more adventurous style of elite people during that period. And queens loved by their husbands died even younger than the unloved ones (whose husbands spared them from two many pregnancies after two or three children, and went for the mistresses). Certainly not really the faults of the men since they did not know better. Also battle anxiety that needed some source of relief on the part of martial men, and happy sex after waiting for the husband for a long time on the part of Mary or Empress Isabella...etc are all understandable, but...
