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My history could be wrong, but I think research into the origin of disease started around the 15-1600s, and the 1800s marked the age of vaccination and disease control. Before then, people were wiped out at an early age, and it was rationalized by (religion, "karma," associating with the enemy or lesser classes) something completely off the mark. Young marriages/families were a human necessity.
Actually that's not true. A mass grave containing the bodies of victums of the plague, unsorted and just as they died, near the end was discovered in an area near London. It provided a snapshot of the population at the time, and the distribution of ages and health with their deaths being an equal opportunity killer.
They expected to find few older people. The plague had been active for some time and it was assumed that the older victums would be the first. They were wrong. The mix was fairly even in age. And there was a far larger percentage of older victums, but when it was expanded and added to other estamates, not a significantly larger one.
The curve for a normal population today was what they found. More children had died, but through adulthood, it was predictable. The most intreging victum was the 91 year old woman. It was assumed she would have been of a more pampered class given her age. But when they studied her remains, they discovered she had worn teeth and joint damage associated with the poor. It was concluded she was a pesant.
Other studies have been done on populations in 'olden times' and the truth is while they died somewhat younger than the present, not that much. The greatest number were small children and infants. If you could survive your babyhood, and then your early childhood, even if you were not of the upper class, you stood a good chance of living about as long as you would today. The *average* life expectency is averaged including the dead small children and babies which suggest the average is too low.
So it wasn't life expectancy, but culture. You could end up married at twelve, but you wouldn't necessarily life as a wife until you got older. But your marriage sealed some family arrainged deal and was set which was all which mattered.
As someone else mentioned, it was the signing of the marriage contract which sealed the deal and gave the advantages they created the marriage for. You might be five. You wouldn't actually marry until you were of age.
Back in the day when it was common for girls to be married to kings and such like when they first started their period say 11 or 12 or so, did the men TRULY find them attractive? I get the reason why they did it, but except for a few really sick individuals I think most men today would say they would never find a young girl that has barely hit puberty attractive, much less want to marry/have sex with them, and I doubt male biology has changed that much since cave man days.
So when kings/emperors etc. would get these little girls were they honestly attracted to them and wanting to have sex?
Love and physical attraction was dissociated from marriage to a far greater extent than in modern American society. Preserving the family lineage and maintaining power were more important considerations. A consideration could be that the late teens are a woman's prime years reproductively; marry her early and you're sure to get a male inheritor to the throne.
As far as finding girls at the cusp of their sexual maturity attractive, that varies from culture to culture. There are plenty of sites were men hang out and upload almost-nude pictures of girls who could be in your age range. We are rightly conditioned to believe that it is immoral to do that, but biologically they are already nearly adults.
As recently as the late 1800's, marriage to a 13=14 year old girl was commonplace. My great grandmother married at the age of 13, I am in my 60's. Jerry Lee Lewis married quite a young second cousin of his, IIRC, 13 or so, I think?
As recently as the late 1800's, marriage to a 13=14 year old girl was commonplace. My great grandmother married at the age of 13, I am in my 60's. Jerry Lee Lewis married quite a young second cousin of his, IIRC, 13 or so, I think?
All my research disagrees with this. These are exceptions rather than the norm. Also, marriage laws in America have always varied by state so it's best not to make blanket statements like this. I blogged about this very issue once, that people seem to think it was the norm for girls in history to marry around 13-17 and that if a girl wasn't married by 18-22, she was already considered an old maid. Not true in many places.
I took a bunch of marriage records from PA in the late 1800s and compiled the data to prove that the average age of men at first marriage was 26, and for women it was 23. Also, people under the age of 21 needed parental consent to marry, and men had to be at least 18 to marry at all, even with parental consent, while women had to be at least 15 to marry at all. Now, I can't speak for other states but in my very extensive genealogy research, I haven't come across a state that varied all too greatly from that.
I'm not saying that your great grandmother didn't marry at 13, but that must have been the minimum age required to marry with parental consent. Also, if it was in a state that wasn't yet issuing birth certificates when she was born, it's always possible she lied about her age. And unless you have the actual documentation proving she was 13 at the time of her marriage, I would always "family stories" with a grain of salt. It's one of the first rules of genealogy - family stories always get warped over time. My family told me that my great grandfather came to America alone when he was 14 with no money in his pocket. He was actually 17 and had $25 (equivalent of several hundreds today), and although he was travelling alone, he was meeting his father who was already here. Ultimately, even if she was married at 13, that doesn't mean it was the norm for that time period or place.
Note that although Jerry Lee Lewis did marry his 13 yr old cousin, he received a LOT of public backlash for it, losing deals and cancelling tours, proving that this was NOT normal or considered acceptable to the vast majority of people.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeaceAndLove42
Back in the day when it was common for girls to be married to kings and such like when they first started their period say 11 or 12 or so, did the men TRULY find them attractive? I get the reason why they did it, but except for a few really sick individuals I think most men today would say they would never find a young girl that has barely hit puberty attractive, much less want to marry/have sex with them, and I doubt male biology has changed that much since cave man days.
So when kings/emperors etc. would get these little girls were they honestly attracted to them and wanting to have sex?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PA2UK
.....I took a bunch of marriage records from PA in the late 1800s and compiled the data to prove that the average age of men at first marriage was 26, and for women it was 23. Also, people under the age of 21 needed parental consent to marry, and men had to be at least 18 to marry at all, even with parental consent, while women had to be at least 15 to marry at all......
All very interesting, but average ages of marriage in the late 19th century don't really directly bear on the OP. Yes, by then, laws setting a lower limit to marriage had been started, contrary to human historical practices up until then.
The OP's question seems to be mainly about about whether men can find pubescent girls to be sexually attractive. As far as I know from talking to other men and reading sex studies (for example where men have a band around their penis that measures erections, then are shown pictures of nude females at all ages), yes a sizable cohort of adult men find them to be sexually attractive. Some men like them young, some like them older, many like them best at about the same age or slightly younger.
there was about a decade in my life when I found pubescent girls to be highly attractive, but I was unkissed until i was 26, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I was busy as hell. 2 years blown on the military, during the Nam era, then college full time while working full time, for 4 years, then 3 years of very heavy firearms competition shooting, karate practice, etc.
All very interesting, but average ages of marriage in the late 19th century don't really directly bear on the OP. Yes, by then, laws setting a lower limit to marriage had been started, contrary to human historical practices up until then.
I also posted info about colonial times and medieval and how it still wasn't the norm for girls to be married as young as 12. But in this particular case, I was responding to someone who directly mentioned the late 1800s - just because it wasn't the OP's comment doesn't mean we shouldn't respond. Anyway, the OP never actually specified a time period, just "in the past" and "back in the day". Only the mention of kings/emperors might exclude the US but not a time period.
Back in the day when it was common for girls to be married to kings and such like when they first started their period say 11 or 12 or so, did the men TRULY find them attractive?
Yes, of course they did. But the girls were not typically as young as that.
Quote:
I get the reason why they did it, but except for a few really sick
individuals I think most men today would say they would never find a young girl
that has barely hit puberty attractive.
They wouldn't say it, because they wouldn't want people calling them "really sick individuals". But yes most men can still find girls just past puberty attractive. We are biologically hard wired for that.
I know I am bumping this but it's kind of related. I do get that back then there weren't tons of potential for mates but what I don't get is how that could make someone feel attraction to a sibling or close cousin. I just read an article about how King Tut was the result of his father and sister getting it on. WTF???
Even in 1000 BC I just don't understand how anyone would not be repulsed about the idea of getting it on with their sister. Or is it truly a cultural thing and if we didn't view incest as wrong do you think more brothers and sisters and close cousins would be getting it on a lot more?
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