Roxelana, Princess Hurrem, born Aleksandra Lisovska about 1515, died in the spring of 1558. She had chronic health conditions but it might have been malaria or another disease that swept through the Old Palace. Suleyman outlived her by about eight years and was near 90 years old when he died in Southern Hungary. He had managed to survive many military campaigns and the deaths of children, for a few years after she died, another son was executed. He was reportedly in great grief over his wife's death, for they had been a married couple since 1535 and their relationship had gone on for years before that.
Something I was struck by while reading Empress of the East was how gender roles were so restricted and, by my way of thinking, were extreme. This was a world in which for women mothering was the ultimate expectation for which a woman could derive glory, but usually only through her hyper masculine sons and their importance, and men sought to achieve power through battle and a competitiveness that meant that they would have their own son's executed if they tried to usurp them.
"So many slain princess led to rule of automatic succession of the oldest living dynast" and that continued until 1922. (Page 314)
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Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce is the reference for this post.
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