The Do's and Don'ts of Writing a Story

HOW TO: Historical marrying age

One of the major misconceptions of marriage in the past, was the age at which people were expected to get married. When you did have these super-young marriages between nobility, it was more less the same thing we do today when we scream "DIBS!" over who gets the T.V remote. You might have a 13 year old lord marrying and 14 year old girl, but they weren't expected to act as husband and wife, not yet. he had schooling to finish, she had to learn how to run a household. The union was purely political, not to be consummated, until later - you know when they were 18 or 19 and she could carry a child without dying of it and he could support his wife. 

We often base are perceptions of the past based on fiction written in the past. There are many plays and other works that not implied child sexual abuse, however this scene in plays was also considered shocking to the people back then too. It would be like someone 500 years from now watching some grim dark noire mopey antihero cop drama in a city of sin, and then thinking that it demonstrates what the everyday life f today's world is. I'm not saying this have NEVER happened back the, it just wasn't as common as people believe. Historical documents from the time have far fewer child marriages than literary documents do. 

Ceremonial marriage is really about place holding the actual marriage when the royal was old enough, there was no consumption and often both parties weren't present. It was one person attesting they would marry the other to uphold the truce or agreement the marriage brokered. 

Also, looking at ordinary people, they didn't get married really young either because people had to be in an economic position to be able to afford a family, which meant being established in their occupation.