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Author Topic: Was 15 too young to get married?  (Read 819 times)
Burrow Digger
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Posts: 1235
Was 15 too young to get married?
« on: Tuesday 16 May 06 15:13 UTC (UK) »
I have  a Marion McNeill born 1822 in Campbeltown, and being married in 1837 to Peter McDiarmid. The first child, Isabella, was born in 1839.

Would marriage at 15, and being a mother at 17 have been a normal event to happen at that age in that time and place?

BD
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Falkyrn
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Posts: 5247
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #1 on: Tuesday 16 May 06 15:30 UTC (UK) »
The "legal" age for a girl to have been married at that time would have been 12 but official sources claim that such marriages were rare and that the average age for marriages was much older.
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joette
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Posts: 127
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #2 on: Friday 19 May 06 12:16 UTC (UK) »
Her "birth" date may have been a christening date & she may have been any age when she was christened.I have ancestors who christened their children in batches with some being four when christened-I thought she had birthed octoplets
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Waddell-Perthshire,Dollar,Clydebank,Glasgow & USA.
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behindthefrogs
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EDLIN
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #3 on: Friday 19 May 06 12:32 UTC (UK) »
The legal age for marriage changed from 12 to 16 in 1929 and so the answer is no it would not have been legal.

However are you working from a birth date or a baptism date?  Baptisms even in the established church were often delayed sometimes for years and of course in some non-conformist churches, in particular the Baptists, would not take place until at least 14.
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Living in Berkshire. From Northampton & Milton Keynes
DETAILS OF THE FOLLOWING NAMES ARE IN SURNAME INTERESTS, LINK AT FOOT OF PAGE
Wilson, Higgs, Buswell, PARCELL, Matthews, TAMKIN, Seckington, Pates, Coupland, Webb, Arthur, MAYNARD, Caves, Norman, Winch, Culverhouse, Drakeley.
Johnson, Routledge, SHIRT, SAICH, Mills, SAUNDERS, EDLIN, Perry, Vickers, Pakeman, Griffiths, Marston, Turner, Child, Sheen, Gray, Woolhouse
Census Info is Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Falkyrn
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Posts: 5247
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #4 on: Friday 19 May 06 13:23 UTC (UK) »
Quote
The legal age for marriage changed from 12 to 16 in 1929 and so the answer is no it would not have been legal.

This occurred in 1837 and so the 1929 Act would not have come into force

The following is a quote from an 18th Century case
Quote
In 1715 for example, Sir George Downing and his wife Mary tried to get their marriage of fifteen years annulled. They argued that they had been forced into the marriage in their youth when Mary was only thirteen years of age, and had never wanted it or consented to it. It was established that the marriage had never been consummated, but because they had both been above the age of consent, which was twelve for a girl, and fourteen for a boy, and there had been no incident of adultery or cruelty, the case was dismissed with the following comment;
 

"...each party was consenting to the marriage, and was old enough to give such consent, according to the known laws of the kingdom...They were actually marry'd according to the form prescrib'd by the Church of England...they are therefore man and wife both by the laws of God and the land." (4)
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behindthefrogs
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EDLIN
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #5 on: Friday 19 May 06 14:23 UTC (UK) »
Whoops

I need to learn to read.  I thought it was 1937.  Sorry
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Living in Berkshire. From Northampton & Milton Keynes
DETAILS OF THE FOLLOWING NAMES ARE IN SURNAME INTERESTS, LINK AT FOOT OF PAGE
Wilson, Higgs, Buswell, PARCELL, Matthews, TAMKIN, Seckington, Pates, Coupland, Webb, Arthur, MAYNARD, Caves, Norman, Winch, Culverhouse, Drakeley.
Johnson, Routledge, SHIRT, SAICH, Mills, SAUNDERS, EDLIN, Perry, Vickers, Pakeman, Griffiths, Marston, Turner, Child, Sheen, Gray, Woolhouse
Census Info is Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Falkyrn
RootsChat Marquessate
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Posts: 5247
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #6 on: Friday 19 May 06 16:41 UTC (UK) »
Quote
I need to learn to read.

join the club ...... I chopped 28 miles off of a journey in another post  Shocked
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Cuimhnich air na daoine o'n d'thainig thu
Burrow Digger
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Posts: 1235
Re: Was 15 too young to get married?
« Reply #7 on: Tuesday 23 May 06 13:57 UTC (UK) »
Thanks everyone for your replies.  I'm going to assume that this marriage date & age is correct until I find anything that says different. Smiley

BD
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