Marriage Age

[Arizona Mommy]

I know that way back when people were married much younger than they marry today. I've heard stories of women getting married as young as 16, even 14. I honestly can't even imagine children getting married so young.

 

In reading some homesteading books on Arizona covering the years up to 1930 I've read about some marriages between 15 and 16 yo girls and 30 yo men. Was this a common occurence or a rarity back then? It seems that girls may be more mature than boys as they are teenagers and young adults but this age difference for marriage really through me for a loop.

[Buck Grizzly]

A poor girl wants to marry and a rich girl wants to flirt.

Ya gotta remember that women were bartered and traded out, in some poorer families also the more bodies you had helping with the chores the richer a family could become. So if you had to trade out a daughter or two for some land or a good mule, or to obtain a good working hand, it wasn't out of the question.

Also girls of culture were shipped off to finishing schools. Finishing what I am not sure. But looking at most situations of the finer families in society many young ladies were not married until after their 20th birthday. Look at many of the politicians & successful business men to verify this. I think for the most part things were not as different as they are now as far as young men and young ladies wanting to grow up faster than they should. I do believe they had a tighter rein on them in their time though.

As far as the norm, really couldn't say but most families wanted their families to expand and the only way to accomplish that was to be fruitful and multiply. Which is why it wasn't out of the norm for families to have 6-8-even up to 12-15 children. Partly because the mortality rate was so low and the more you had the better the odds more would survive. My great grand parents on my mom's side had 12 kids and they were married at 18 her and 20 him, in the 1880's. On my dad's side there were 8 kids and 3 had died early in life.

[Unkle Sherman]

A poor girl wants to marry and a rich girl wants to flirt.
From Charlie Daniels song
"Long Haired Country Boy"

[Buck Grizzly]

Right you are Uncle Sherman!!

Here’s something you might find interesting Az mom.


http://www.wisegeek.com/how-has-the-average-age-at-marriage-changed...




If one looks at US statistics over the past 100 years for example, one sees that men had an average age at marriage of 25.9 years in 1900. Women in 1900 had an average age at marriage of 22 years. For some this shatters an illusion that women 100 years ago were sold into marriage as young children.
Even Jane Austen, writing in the early 19th century had heroines married at the earliest age of 17 or 18. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, which are semi-autobiographical, her father would not allow her to marry until she was 18. Thus it can be said that the average woman was past 21 when entering her first marriage, 100 years ago.
In other cultures, age at marriage may be slightly lower. For example, in Mexico the mean age of marriage currently is 23.3 years for men and 18.4 years for women. This has increased as well, reflecting Mexico’s increasing industrialization.
Currently the average age at marriage in the US is 26.8 years for men, and 25.1 years for women. It is interesting that though this represents an increased age for men, it is not significantly higher than the rate 100 years ago. Actually age rates at marriage for men declined from 1910 through 1960. Lowest average age for marriage in men was in 1960, when the mean age for marriage was 22.8 years.
There are negligible declines in average age at marriage from 1910-1960 in women. However the difference between the 1910 figures and figures in 1960 are less than two years. In men, the difference is a more significant four year spread. However by the 1970s both figures increased. The largest jump in a decade was women’s average age at marriage in 1980 and 1990. In ten years the age rate jumped from 22 years to 23.9.
In fact in the last 20 years, both men and women show a considerable increase in age at marriage. Men are now on average two years older when they marry than the mean age of marriage for men in 1980. Women are three years older on average now, than the mean marriage age in the 1980.

[Arizona Mommy]

Wow, I guess the ages haven't changed too much and it's just what I happen to hear and read about.

But boy did it freak me out reading about these marriage of teen girls to men that were 15 yrs their senior. I don't think there's anything wrong with the age difference. I just think of 15 year olds I know and they are far from mature enough to be married and raising a family.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

In the late 1800s & early 1900s, in the South--& Texas is part of the South--it was not unusual for a Confederate veteran in his 40s or 50s--or even 60s or 70s--to marry a very young girl, even one in her middle teens. Every state in the South, as soon as it could, set up a pension system for its Confederate veterans and their surviving children & spouses. In the Confederate Widows & Orphans Home in Austin, as late as the 1970s, we had surviving Confederate widows drawing Confederate veterans' pensions. Although my great grandfather died in the teens of the last century, my great grandmother drew his Confederate veteran's pension until her death in 1935.

With parental consent, as late as the 1960s a girl of 14 could be married in Arkansas & in West Virginia. When you get back in the backwoods, in the rural portions of the old South & Southwest, you run into a lot of girls who were married in their early teens. Usually the husband wasn't the same age as the girl. He was often a widower as much as 20 years older than she was. He was 'established'--prosperous--& to the girl's family, this meant one less mouth to feed at home & a prosperous son-in-law who might be able to help the family financially if need be.

In the case of the Confederate veterans, a lot of these marriages were arranged, with the girl having little say in the matter. If the husband was 65 & the bride 15, he would probably die in the next few years & the widow, perhaps still in her teens, would have his Confederate widow's pension to add to the family income as soon as he died, so long as she didn't remarry. A lot of 'em didn't remarry & were still drawing Confederate widows' pensions as late as the 1970s here in Texas.

[Heidi Streiff]

I read an article recently that stated women were still drawing Civil War pensions as late as 2004!

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

An old friend of mine--he died a couple of years back--told me his grandmother was married when she was 13. In the 19th century girls didn't usually enter puberty until they were around 15. A lot of that had to do with diet, especially among the poorer people.

Apparently ethnic background also has a hand in it. Girls with Mediterranean or SE European ancestry seem to enter puberty earlier than those with northern European ancestry. I noticed this when I was a kid. Girls with Spanish, Italian, or middle-eastern ancestry were beginning to develop as early as the 4th grade, while girls with northern European ancestry--British, German, Scandanavian--usually didn't begin to develop before the 6th grade. When you're a 5th-grade boy & a 4th-grade girl who had a toothpick figure last summer at the swimming pool suddenly, this summer, fills out a swimsuit in an interesting manner, you definitely notice that.

[Jim Holden]

Yes, in reply also to the "average" statistics quoted above. Certainly the "average" woman probably was married in her early 20's, but this also means that many women were married much younger and many were married much older, so looking at an "average" can be really misleading.

In the urban East of the 1900's it appears that women really did marry in their '20's. However in the rural areas and the West women tended to marry much younger. There are a lot of factors, but one fact is that a lot of women died early, from child birth, or just worn out on the farm/ranch. Life was very hard back then. So a lot of older men married younger, available girls when replacing their first wife and to help with the family that was already started. There was also the issue of availability. In many of the remote Western and Rural towns there just weren't that many eligible women and men, so they "made do".

I've read a lot of accounts and know of women in my own family that were married at 15/16 - heck both my Sisters were married at 17 in the 1950's and had their children before they were 25. Contrast that to what you see today!

[Chris Lampe]

I'd have to do some digging be 100% sure but I'm almost positive my great-grandfather was about 30 when he married a 16-year old girl. Family legend has it that he had just returned from California with $10,000. Not a bad catch in the 1860's.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

My great-grandfather, who was born in 1817, wore out his first wife w/7 kids. When she died he married a 14-year-old girl & sired 7 more with her. My grandfather, the youngest of the 2nd litter, was born in 1879, when the old man was 62.

When you figure averages, you have to figure in the old as well as the young. My 2nd grade teacher was the prototypical 'old maid schoolteacher. A couple of years after I was in her class, at a teacher-training session during the summer, she met a hot-blooded Pole who swept her off her feet. She was 41, he was 37. When she came back to work after the Christmas break, she was Mrs., not Miss. The following fall she didn't start work until November. She had maternity leave.