Talk:Amalie Mainbach/@comment-33063641-20200612123513/@comment-45880342-20200612130051

Bottom line: Arranged marriage. She was a daughter of another poor knighthood. As a daughter, she wouldn't be in line to inherit anything, so she's seen as a political tool binding the territories more tightly together. At the same time, since Kurt was the defacto heir, she would be keeping her social status. Likewise, from the Baumeister side, Kurt wouldn't be seen as "marrying down." It's archaic, but such arranged marriages were once shockingly common. They had never even met in person before the wedding -- likely only a few letters. So you could say he lucked out.

But also, Kurt was always jealous of his brothers (especially Erich and Wendelin), but he wasn't originally mean or arrogant and hadn't become full-on scum at the time. Her PoV story in the novels makes it clear that he seemed to care about her at first, and even after he lost interest (not surprisingly once he had heirs of his own) he didn't mistreat her (well, except the psychological toll of being basically ignored). Additionally, the novels make pretty clear that the significant shift in his personality didn't really come until his father started giving him more authority, which means that on some level it was power going to his head, and on another level it was the return of the jealousy that stemmed from hearing about Wendelin's successes and accolades (which is why Wend's return to the area is what finally caused him to lose it).