Bride-show

A bride-show was a custom, practiced by Byzantine emperors and Russian tsars, of selecting a wife from among the most beautiful eligible young women in the realm, with a similar practice also documented in imperial China. The custom let a ruler personally choose his own spouse from candidates drawn from the nobility, functioning as an alternative to marriages arranged through political alliance negotiations and instead emphasizing the ruler's direct choice based on appearance and suitability. Byzantine emperors used bride-shows from at least the eighth century, Russian tsars adopted the practice during the Muscovite period, particularly the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Chinese emperors used a comparable process to select not only an empress but also concubines of various ranks. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/