this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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[–] LotrOrc@lemmy.world 11 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

People throughout history have been married way younger.

It's only a very recent phenomenon in 90% of the world that people don't get married by 22. Even go back to the 80s and 90s which weren't that long ago - getting married under 25 was exceptionally common

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I used to think the women of the past were all married young or spinsters, from reading little house on the prairie and other books. But looked up my ancestors on that Mormon website and was surprised to find that most were 28, 29. Even going pretty far back. This was mostly the US (and this area before unification) and southern Europe though, don't know that it can be extrapolated. I just didn't expect it.

[–] LotrOrc@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Even then would be pretty recent considering human history, and I have a feeling that like you said that's very narrowed down through both region and religion.

Though funnily enough I grew up (middle school and high school) with kids from 2 different Mormon families as two of my closest friends, and knew kids from 2 others. Each of those 4 families had a minimum of 5 kids, and each one of those kids as far as I know, both guys and girls, got married by 23.

But it was normal in Europe to be betrothed as young as 5, and married at 12 or 13 for centuries.

If you go to the east, Akbar the Great was married off at 9.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Yeah but I think "marriage" like that was a lot different from what we consider it to be now. More of a way to link families, not love matches or even "teams" on their own. Like it wasn't for them, they were resources parents traded around in marriages and also fosterings, right?