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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: linmey on Monday 02 July 07 21:06 BST (UK)
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I know this subject has cropped up before but at the risk of you all letting out a groan, I was wondering what is the youngest age at marriage you have found. I am particularly interested in the period 1700 to 1750.
Many thanks, Linda.
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Looks like my family is a bit boring. I dont think any age drops below 20! Certainly model citizens ;D
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Oh positively geriatric Vasquez. ;) Thanks for the reply though!
Linda.
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Hi Linda
I've got loads of 17 and 18 year olds but nothing younger than that.
Kerry
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Hi kerry,
Thanks for that. Hope you are well. Do you happen to know what the legal lower age for marriage was at that time if indeed there was one which I am presume there must have been! :-\
Linda
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Hi Linda
This topic seems to be have been discussing it.
http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1969.html
Note Guy's reply.
Sandy
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Hi Linda,
May I ask what the youngest age at marriage is that youve found?
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Just to say that from the Office of National Statistics the number of males under 16 who were married between 1851 and 1928 was 30, and females 1,931.
Stan
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Thank you very much everyone for your replies and I will check that link Sandy.
Linda.
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Hi Vasquez,
It looks like bride and groom could have been about 12. Looking at your link sandie, not a total impossibility!!
Linda.
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Hi Vasquez,
It looks like bride and groom could have been about 12. Looking at your link sandie, not a total impossibility!!
Linda.
The legal age for marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys.
Stan
Stan
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certainly on my family tree dating back many hundreds of years i have about 12 or 13 different couples married before the age of 16.
from around 1100 and even some time before that up to th eearly 1800's it was quite common practice to marry when you were young even from the age of 12!
these marriages were not normaly chosen by the bride or groom but would most likely have been chosen by there parents sometimes even before they were born.
it was also common practice to marry cousins infact some families in the 1600's would not have it any other way!
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From time immemorial the age for matrimonial consent was fixed at 7 years, but puberty was accepted as the age for consummation of the marriage, which was 12 for girls and 14 for boys.
Stan
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Surely that was only for the rich, famous and royal? Surely the common people didn't do it that way and marry each other off at the age of 7!!! :o :o :o
Kerry
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Im afraid sometimes that was true as the poor people might not have had much chance at marriage any other way they would probrably have thought who would want to marry into a poor family so they marry cousins ect...
well the obvious choice would be another poor family and on extremely rare ocasions a poor woman would marry a noble gentleman but this was also a way to secure there child a marriage.
7 would probrably be a little young not to say it never happend but you some of the earlier cases would probrably be around 10-11 ish
:) Jason
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I see that if they lived right out in the sticks in a small village they would have little choice, certainly that is true with a lot of my ancestors. I didn't find many marrying cousins but certainly the neighbours children whos siblings might have married their own siblings.
But never that young ;D
Kerry
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From "The Oxford Guide to Family History" by David Hey.
Another myth that has been firmly laid to rest by social historians is that English people used to marry when they were very young......The evidence is inconclusive for the medieval period, but the study of parish registers has left no doubt that since the sixteenth century at least England has shared the north-western European pattern of a later age at marriage.... So well established was this pattern by the beginnings of parish registration, that it is unlikely that medieval experience was much different.... Only a very small proportion of the population of Elizabethan England married before the age of 20.
Stan
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Slightly off topic but I was reading about Lucrezia Borgia, and she was married off at 13, but there were offers by the time she was 10! :o
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Having just done a query on my Family Historian the average age to marry for my lot was 20 so spot on Stan ;D
Kerry
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Is the legal age that we have in this country the same as other countries around the world?
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See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age
Stan
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Thank you all for your replies, its been very interesting.
Linda.
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Blinkin' eck!
Age of consent for marriage in Yemen is 9??????? What sort of crazy world do we live in?
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Scary isnt it!
Linda.
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Surely authorities should raise the age. What makes it scary is the thought of have people tried to get married younger than that and been stopped by the government?
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Blinkin' eck!
Age of consent for marriage in Yemen is 9??????? What sort of crazy world do we live in?
It worries me more when you hear of people in the 1400's etc and their child-bride. What kind of man wants to marry a 13 year old?! :o
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Well if its a marriage into a royal line then perhaps. Just because youre married doesnt mean you have to do what married couples do does it!
Or does it? Were you expected to produce children back in the 1400's as soon as you were married?