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Just FYI, I looked at my data again and out of 500+ cases that I used, there were only 2 cases of the bride being 15, so it was somewhat rare. Like I say, 15 was the absolute minimum age, so there were no 13 or 14 year old brides (not in this location during this period). There were 14 cases of the bride being 16, and 20 cases of the bride being 17, so naturally it became more and more common as the age went up, but it still wasn't the norm.
The assumption would however be that Butler county PA is representative of all of the U.S. though. I believe the county was initially settled by New England farmers and then had a large German influx. It's quite possible things would be somewhat different in areas settled by other groups and with different economic incentives.
I vaguely remember some stories in the Little House on the Prairie books of young teens getting married on the frontier. Laura Ingalls herself was 18 and of age when she married Alonzo.
Obviously age of consent and average age for marrying is different, but back in the 18th/19th centuries did grown men really marry very young girls like 13/14/15 etc.?
It happened--especially out in the frontier territories. For example, two of Daniel Boone's daughters were married at ages fourteen and fifteen respectively.
Keep in mind that in the time and place, young women and men were raised much differently than they are today. Most would have not only been taught the 17th and 18th century version of "adulting" from the time that they could toddle, but also would generally have a fair amount of family and community support as a newly married young couple. It also was startlingly common for a young bride to in the family way before she made her way to the altar, so more than a few weddings were made in haste in order to prevent the stigma of bastardy, i.e., shotgun weddings.
Even up until fairly recently, it's wasn't unheard of for a young woman to be married that young particularly in rural or working class areas. My former mother-in-law's mother was married at fifteen; my maternal great-grandmother married for the first time shortly after she turned sixteen. Heck, Loretta Lynn married her husband she was just a young teen and Myra Brown Lewis (Jerry Lee Lewis' former wife) was only thirteen when she was married.
Someone mentioned Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was just fifteen when she and her husband (aged twenty-five at the time, although this age gap was reduced in the books) began courting, although they didn't marry until she was eighteen.
The assumption would however be that Butler county PA is representative of all of the U.S. though. I believe the county was initially settled by New England farmers and then had a large German influx. It's quite possible things would be somewhat different in areas settled by other groups and with different economic incentives.
I did say that it can vary somewhat depending on location (I specifically mentioned teen brides were more common in the south of the US), but I also talked about the national averages and norms (you just didn't quote my first post which included all of that). There's plenty of articles out there about how people (especially girls) commonly marrying as young teenagers in history is a misconception, because it wasn't actually the norm. My data is consistent with national stats in that the average age is usually 20+ and when girls did marry as teens, it was usually as older teens (18-19).
"They didn’t marry young.
At the end of the 18th century, the average age of first marriage was 28 years old for men and 26 years old for women. During the 19th century, the average age fell for English women, but it didn’t drop any lower than 22. Patterns varied depending on social and economic class, of course, with working-class women tending to marry slightly older than their aristocratic counterparts. But the prevailing modern idea that all English ladies wed before leaving their teenage years is well off the mark."
"Between 1800 and 1900, women generally married for the first time between the ages of 20 and 22. Less is known about the average age of first marriages for men during the 19th century. In 1890, when the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting marriage data, it was recorded that the average age of a first marriage for men was 26 years, and the average age of marriage for women was 22 years."
My study of Butler County was just an example of how you can study marriage records to get an idea of the local laws and average ages, but it is fairly consistent with the average norms for the time.
I did say that it can vary somewhat depending on location (I specifically mentioned teen brides were more common in the south of the US), but I also talked about the national averages and norms (you just didn't quote my first post which included all of that). There's plenty of articles out there about how people (especially girls) commonly marrying as young teenagers in history is a misconception, because it wasn't actually the norm. My data is consistent with national stats in that the average age is usually 20+ and when girls did marry as teens, it was usually as older teens (18-19).
"They didn’t marry young.
At the end of the 18th century, the average age of first marriage was 28 years old for men and 26 years old for women. During the 19th century, the average age fell for English women, but it didn’t drop any lower than 22. Patterns varied depending on social and economic class, of course, with working-class women tending to marry slightly older than their aristocratic counterparts. But the prevailing modern idea that all English ladies wed before leaving their teenage years is well off the mark."
"Between 1800 and 1900, women generally married for the first time between the ages of 20 and 22. Less is known about the average age of first marriages for men during the 19th century. In 1890, when the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting marriage data, it was recorded that the average age of a first marriage for men was 26 years, and the average age of marriage for women was 22 years."
My study of Butler County was just an example of how you can study marriage records to get an idea of the local laws and average ages, but it is fairly consistent with the average norms for the time.
I remember a TV show once on the varying ages of marriage historically, tying them to the economic conditions of the time. In times of plenty, couples marry younger, and when times are harder, they wait longer.
That might not apply now that traditional roles have changed.
Death by childbirth was much more common, and illnesses like cholera, influenza, typhoid would often kill young brides as well. The man, in such situations, was left with a choice of trying to place his kids by that wife with other families or in an orphanage, or finding another young woman to to marry and care for the kids.
Death by childbirth was much more common, and illnesses like cholera, influenza, typhoid would often kill young brides as well. The man, in such situations, was left with a choice of trying to place his kids by that wife with other families or in an orphanage, or finding another young woman to to marry and care for the kids.
She doesn't have to be that young to care for his children. Unless she's elderly and having mobility problems, women of any age can care for existing children. And contrary to one of the other responses too, women throughout history have commonly had children into their 30s and even early 40s. The idea that a woman in history was considered too old to have children by the time she was 30 just isn't true, so even if a widowed man wanted a second wife young enough to give him more children doesn't mean he would have looked for a 13-14 year old.
If you read through the responses, you'll find it wasn't actually common in history for older men to marry girls as young as 13-14 and in some places, it wasn't even legal.
I remember my grandmother saying her older sister married at 15. Her father made her and her boyfriend marry "before they had to".
This was in the 1890s or first decade of the 20th century.
Some years later, I saw the grave of this great-aunt, who died the year I was born, next to that of her daughter, whom I had known. She was 16 years older than her first child, so I guess great-grandpa was onto something.
And it continued into this century. Country singer Loretta Lynn comes to mind--married at 13, mother at 14, grandmother at 29.
I've talked to many older people who said their great grandmother was married at 13 or 14. They were mostly from the south.
I always thought the age of adulthood was set younger in the past especially because of how young children would go to work in coal mines and stuff back then. Also if life expectancy was shorter in the past, they had to marry young because they were like 50 year olds when they reached 30. With no prenatal care, they had to be young and at their healthiest when having children.
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