[LMB] Age at first marriage

[Peter Granzeau]

At 06:49 PM 4/4/2008, Azalais Aranxta wrote:
>On Fri, 4 Apr 2008, Adam Ek wrote:
>
>> On Apr 4, 2008, at 1:51 PM, Mark Allums wrote:
>> > I am told that there was a frontier-era saying that the ideal ages for
>> > bride and groom were thus:  The bride should be half the groom's age,
>> > plus seven years.
>>
>> I first read that in The Number of the Beast, but the character
>> attributed it to Little Women.
>
>So if a boy marries at 14 (legal in some places) his bride is the
>same age as him, but at 16, she's 15, at 18, she's 16, at 20,
>she's 17, at 22, she's 18, at 24, she's 19, at 26, 20, at 28, 21,
>at 30, 22...?
>
>But very few of the stories I've heard involving 14 year old
>brides involved boys under 20.
>
>Of course it means also that at 43, I'd have to marry a man who
>is 72 @@;;;  no thanks!

Darn!  I guess I'm out of the running, then.

>This strikes me as a rule more often honoured in the breach.
>Either that or a rule that assumes bridegrooms are no younger
>than 18 and no older than 34, at which one gets a 24 year old
>bride.
>
>~malfoy, imagining some 40 year old in 1890 being censured for
>marrying someone under 27, and successfully rolling to
>disbelieve...if he had money she'd have been considered wise to
>accept him.

200 years ago, Jane Austen seems not to have believed that wide differences in age were all that bad, at all.  In _Sense and Sensibility_, Marianne is 17 and Col. brandon is 35 when they meet, and they marry when she is 19 (and he must, thereby, be 37?).

-- 
Regards, Pete
pgranzeau at cox.net