in the 1890s On 6 July 1891, he married
Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein at
St. George's Chapel in
Windsor Castle. Princess Marie Louise was the daughter of
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and
Princess Helena of the United Kingdom, making her a granddaughter of
Queen Victoria. The bride's first cousin, the German Emperor
Wilhelm II, had been instrumental in arranging the match. In December 1900, the Duke of Anhalt used his prerogative as reigning Duke to annul the marriage. Princess Marie Louise, on an official visit to
Canada at the time, immediately returned to England. According to her memoirs, she regarded her marriage vows as binding, so she never remarried. Her memoirs do, however, indicate rage over her marital experience and an obvious dislike of her former husband. Though contemporary sources did not directly suggest it was a cause of his marriage dissolution, a number of contemporaries and subsequent historical accounts suggest Aribert was
bisexual or
homosexual, and some have suggested an indiscretion with a male attendant was the catalyst for the dissolution and that the marriage had never been
consummated. However, other sources later suggested he was planning to remarry. ==Military career==