Talk:Amalie Mainbach/@comment-182.55.147.209-20200509112957/@comment-45880342-20200524122031

"Since Elise is the main wife, her kids will be first in line compared to the children he would get with the other wives"

Yes and no. The Helmut Kingdom's polygamic structure allows for two such statuses: wives and mistresses. By default, the children of wives are legally potentially heirs, while the children of mistresses are not, though it is possible to disinherit a legitimate heir [1], accept an illegitimate heir [2], or have a claim made by a third party as a potential heir [3].

The status of the wives, as in who is "first" or not (in this story, the term "concubine" is just a short-hand to refer to any wife after the first), is about social standing more than anything else, and while that presumedly would give preference to a male child from the "first" wife over one from other wives, that's also not a given. First, the novel makes clear that if a new wife is of higher social standing than the current first wife, the family of the woman can push for her to become recognized as a new first wife. But second, we actually have an example in the story of a succession dispute based on exactly this: Philip and Christoph Browig both fought to be the heir to their father's title. Philip was older, but was born of the second wife. Christoph was younger, but born of the first wife. Both sides had reasons to presume some degree of legitimacy, and their father never named one of them before dying, hence the trouble.

Now, some of this is moot: we know that, of his initial children, Elise has a boy, as does Katharina. And if I recall, I think Elise's is born first, though I can't recall 100%. The rest are girls. Perhaps there will be more boys later, but that's not really the concern. Since Katharina's son will already ingerit her house's restored title, we can safely presume his son by Elise as the primary heir, period.

[1] We see multiple cases of children giving up their inheritance at 15, but I can only think of one example, that of Erwin, who was pushed out more directly. Then, after Wend became famous, they tried to re-forge the ties in order to benefit, which just sealed the deal for Erwin as he didn't want to be used. Louise comes close, since she was pushed out of her family's dojo, but she wasn't actually disinherited per se; then again, as a woman, she had slim chance of inheriting anything anyway.

[2] Karla von Browig might be a good example of this, since she was the daughter of a Margrave's mistress, was called to his home to care for him as he died, and placed in the family register (she eventually got herself removed when her uncle became the new Margrave). A better example, though, is likely Rhodrich. His fauther was the scheming Baron Ruckner, who ignored him as the child of a mistress right up until he wanted to use Rodrich against Wend. All of a sudden, he's recognized by the family, and Baron Ruckner tries to push all sorts of familial obligation claims to get him to spy on Wend, etc. This is actually why Baron Ruckner's title was able to fall to him (that and the fact that the rest of the Baron's family died too), which normally would not have happened, though Rhodrich refused to accept it (instead it will fall to Rhodrich's son, when he eventually has one).

[3] We don't have a clear example of this that I'm aware of, but the novels point to concern of this regularly. Wend isn't permitted to go to the Red Light District with Erwin and Brantark because if a prostitute later claims to have had the Earl's child, it could cause political problems. Likewise, Margrave/Duke Breithilde basically forces Brantark to take a wife because, as Brantark is a chronic bachelor even in his 50s, Breithilde is concerned about dealing with the mess of inheritance claims (including from prostitutes) if Brantark doesn't have a clearly legitimate heir. The concern stems from the fact that that is exactly what happened when Alfred passed on without a wife or heir.