To regain his freedom, he was required to marry Elisabeth Christine, daughter of Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Antoinette, in 1733.

This was in sharp contrast to the "English party" around Queen Sophie Dorothea, sister of King George II of Great Britain, and Crown Prince Frederick himself.

Frederick is widely presumed to have been homosexual, having shown no sexual or even platonic interest in women; the only woman whom he considered a close friend was his older sister, Wilhelmine.

During the first year of their marriage, Frederick was garrisoned in command of his own regiment, at his establishment at Ruppin, which he had been given by his father after the betrothal,[2] while Elisabeth lived in Berlin at the king's court.

Her husband showered her with letters asking for things such as travel permits and money from the king or even demanding that she run up debts in Brunswick to pay for his expenses.

During the first 17 years of her husband's reign, she shared the representational duties of the court with her mother-in-law until the latter's death in 1757, after which she handled them alone, as the only member of the royal family living in the huge Berlin Palace.

[3] At both residences, she presided at the weekly reception days, courtage, which were the only occasions where the entire Prussian royal court assembled as a whole during the reign of Frederick the Great, who hardly ever took part himself.

In addition to the courtages, large dinners, balls, opera performances, ambassador's receptions and family celebrations (birthdays, christenings, weddings) were on her program.

[3] A reception by Elisabeth Christine in Schönhausen was described in 1779 by the English tourist Dr. Moore: The Queen has one Court-day in the week, when the Princes, nobility, and foreign ambassadors wait upon her, at five o' clock.

The rest of the company shows itself a moment at each of these card tables, and then the attendance for the day is over, and they walk in the garden, or form other card-tables in the other rooms, as it pleases them, and return to Berlin at dusk.

On the one hand, compliance with protocol and etiquette was important to him, so he made sure that the queen's carriage always drove directly behind his on ceremonial processions, even in front of that of his adored mother.

Neither did she receive an invitation to the inauguration of the new wing of Charlottenburg Palace in the summer of 1746,[5] nor to a large celebration that the king gave in August 1749 in honor of his mother in Sanssouci.

[3] In many aspects her situation was similar to that of her sister-in-law, Princess Wilhelmina, the neglected wife of the king's brother Prince Henry, only that the queen consort had an important representational task.

Her translations of the Réflexions sur l'etat des affaires publiques en 1778[8] aroused public patriotism during the War of Bavarian Succession.