I think binge watching Game of Thrones has got the idea of Marriage making Alliances in my head.
So in my mental musings I got to thinking about how unlikely it should have been that the First Prince had no heir for the first 17 years of his reign....
yeah, 17 YEARS, that seems rather unlikely right?
IIRC, he did loose his fiance in 3013 just as he took power, but he had 7 years to find a new GF & secure the future of the family line.
I'm thinking within 5 years of being 1st Prince someone should have pointed out that the realm needs a legacy & he should have been married with children by the time Katrina give her Peace Proposal in 3020.
What do you think?
What do I think? I see a lot of assumptions with no evidence to support them.
First, when he 'officially' became First Prince he was likely still suffering the after-effects of losing his brother, losing his fiancée and the failed attempt to replace his with a Double. Not to mention that he was thrown into the deep end of the pool without any real preparation. Ian was their father's heir and while he intellectually knew he was Ian's heir, Hanse likely had little serious preparation for becoming First Prince. All this combined doesn't exactly allow a person to be emotionally ready for an engagement.
Second, given the fact that we know little to nothing about the early years of Hanse's reign (or the rest for that matter), where is it stated that nobody attempted to get him to marry or attempted to put forth one of their family members (or themselves a la Baroness de Gambier with Daniel Allard) as a potential wife? And while there may be many noble families in the Federated Suns, how many of them would have had an unwed daughter of proper age with the proper pedigree and social/political background just waiting in the wings for a chance to marry the First Prince? To put off those who refused to drop it, Hanse would have likely pointed to his brother's 14-year unmarried reign, promised that he would be more circumspect than his brother, pointed out that he did have a heir that could take over if necessary and that if they did like it, tough. After all who is going to try and force the First Prince to marry if he doesn't want to? The two people who might have been able to persuade him would have been Ian (deceased) and his best friend, Ardan Sortek, who Hanse "The Fox" Davion would have know how to get him to drop the subject when he tried to force it.
Even after negotiations started between House Davion and House Steiner for the marriage and until the official public announcement was made, prospects likely continued to come/were put before him. All the negotiations were top secret and only a few knew the full details of what the negotiations were about.
As far as marrying Melissa off to Morgan Hasek-Davion, it would have been too difficult to arrange a marriage between Melissa and Morgan while keeping Michael Hasek-Davion out of the loop. It would have likely required telling Morgan about their suspicions regarding his father so he would keep the secret from him and he likely first wouldn't believe them but would then demand the right to confront his father.
Regarding Candace Liao, wasn't she heading down the path towards madness that her sister, Romano, had already gone down before she took up with Justin Xiang who saved her from that fate? ;)