The boundaries of a marriage are the business of the two people involved.Nobody else.Many people are married but are certainly not "Darby & Joan".Zenaida and her husband stuck together for whatever reason.Maybe it was true love, maybe it was out of pride who knows.They could have divorced it was not unknown in their circles.Zenaida's cousin Marie Narishkin divorced Prince Platon Obolensky ( the father of her 2 sons) to marry General de Return.Anastasia of Montenegro divorced The Duke of Leutchenberg to marry Grand Duke Nicholas.There were many more stories.So IF things had been sour there was an escape route.Their marriage was perhaps like so many others of that era,that world.They stayed together out of affection,common ambition whatever.....So their marriage was in its way as succesful as any other.
personally speaking, i prefer to believe that Zenaïda & Feliks found a sort of happiness together....of whatever type & to whatever degree.
however, a cynical thought occurred to me, and maybe someone else knows more about it: in many parts of the world, during the time period being discussed, a woman's property wasn't really hers. her dowry became her husband's, and indeed, anything left to her by her father (or any other relative, for that matter) immediately became her husband's property. a woman's body was not even her own --- in essence, a woman, and all that she had, was, first, the property of her father, and then, the property of her husband. now, my question is this: what were the property rights in Russia during Zenaïda's life? what had her dowry consisted of? (even though it's "traditional" purpose was to aid in establishing the marriage home, in almost all cases, in most countries, dowries became the husband's property automatically, sort of like a payment for marrying the bride.) does anyone know just how much "control" the elder Feliks had over the assets that had belonged to his in-laws?
Zenaïda seems to have been a demure-type who would have deferred to her husband....so it may have been that, as sole heir & last of her line, it was she who legally
owned the assets, but it was her husband who, by law or by deference, actually
controlled them.
if
any of the above applied to Zenaïda, her husband & the Yusupov wealth, it could very well be that she simply had too much to lose in a divorce, regardless of whether or not divorce was an option.
any thoughts?
