The royal family also may rightly be included in the slave-family. The mothers of the sultan’s children were slaves; the sultan himself was the son of a slave; and his daughters were married to men, who, though they might be called vizier and pasha, wore these titles at the sultan’s pleasure, whereas they bore indelibly the title of _kul_, or slave.[137] The sultan’s sons, though they might sit upon the throne, would be the consorts of none but slaves. Long before Suleiman’s time, the sultans had practically ceased either to obtain brides of royal rank, or to give the title of wife to the mothers of their children.[138] Suleiman, given to legality and religious observance, and greatly devoted to the lovely Roxelana, made her his lawful wife. Since, by the Sacred Law, the status of the mother as wife or slave does not affect the legitimacy of the children if the father acknowledges them,[139] all children born in the harem were of equal legitimacy and rank. OTHER OTTOMAN SLAVE-FAMILIES The ruling institution of any state is apt to be copied in miniature by many organizations within the same state. The municipalities of Rome, and the state and city governments of the United States, were each modeled after the central government. In a similar way, every great officer of the Ottoman court built up a slave-family after the model of the Ruling Institution. The grand vizier had a very large establishment; the viziers had somewhat smaller ones; the governors of provinces had households in proportion to their incomes;[140] and each adult prince kept a miniature government. Not only the slave-family feature but all the other features of the Ruling Institution were imitated. All deemed it meritorious to purchase Christians and turn them into Moslems. Iskender Chelebi had a highly successful educational system;[141] he also kept a little standing army, and at a later time so did Rustem.[142] Each great officer protected his slaves, each kept them about him like a court, each used them as a little government to rule his affairs. Such imitation might easily become a danger to the state, but ordinarily a prompt remedy could be applied. Every such household was strictly personal; it was gathered about a living man; that man was ordinarily himself a slave of the sultan: let him show the least movement toward treason, and his head would be removed, his property would come to his master, his household would be incorporated with the central slave-family, all danger would be at an end, and the sultan would only be the stronger. Further safeguards lay in the close relations of the head of each slave-family to the sultan, and in the fact that some _Spahis_ of the Porte and other imperial _kullar_ of inferior position seem usually to have been attached to the suite of each great official.[143] Moslem private citizens also kept slave-families as numerous as they could afford,[144] but these could hardly become dangerous under any circumstances. They might emulate