[LMB] Age at first marriage

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mitch Miller" <mitchmiller at entertainmenttax.com>


> From: Ann Sharp <axsc at sbcglobal.net
>
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> Ann:
>
> Genealogist's rule of thumb for Western Europe and
> America:  If the young couple were going to
> housekeeping on their own, the usual/average age at
> first marriage was about twenty-four for the young
> man, twenty for the girl.  These numbers are
> reasonably well supported once we start seeing enough
> record-keeping for Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary Person to
> have both a baptismal date and a marriage date
> recorded, late 16th-early 17th centuries.
>
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>
> Jews married younger.  For example, Gluekel of Hamlin (1646-1724)
> was married at 14, Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi (1510-1569) at 18.

She was nobility, though, and married  close relative, too....

Gluckel of Hamelin remarried, though...

> Even today, Orthodox Jewish girls are getting married as early as 17,
> yes, here in the U.S.

Some yes, others no... my mother's mother had to have been at least 27 when 
she married, and the youngest of my mother and her sisters had been at least 
well into her twenties when she married... all the others were no earlier 
than their late twenties, and others over 30.... (one aunt stayed Orthodox. 
She was was over 40 when she married...)

> I wonder how universal marriage in the 20's was during the 19th century
> - Juana Maria de los Dolores deLeon Smith, the "Ladysmith" for whom the
> town in South Africa and hence the singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo
> is named, (1798-1872) married then-Major Harry Smith when she was 14 -- 
> he was 25.

That was a very unusual situation, though, she was unusually young for that 
era