Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
Perhaps she did something that caused her family to become heavily indebted to Ivan's but Ivan's family agreed to forgive the debt if one of Hilgya's family's daughter's would be married off to one of the sons of Ivan's family and Hilgya was cosen because it was her debt?

It's just as plausible based on our knowledge(Literally nothing) on her family's reasoning for marrying her off as them doing it for poops and giggles.
I would suggest it is significantly more plausible, since people almost never do anything just for its own sake.