Until 1823 the legal age in England for marriage was 21 years for men and women although after 1823 a male could marry as young as 14 without parental consent and a girl at 12 although most girls didn't marry until around the ages of 18 to 23.
In reality, most high society Victorian brides in England and America fell somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, with the marriage age gradually growing later as the century progressed.
In 18th-century America, the typical age of marriage for middle-to-upper class white women was 22 and 26 for men. Women began courting as early as 15 or 16, but most delayed marriage until their early twenties. The years of courtship were a time when 18th-century women could enjoy some freedom and power.
The marriage age of men was probably the same or a bit older than that of women. (In 1619, it was about 23 for women, 26 for men.) The age of consent was 12 for a girl, 14 for a boy, but for most children puberty came two or three years later than it does today.
Joan of France, Duchess of Berry (age 12), was betrothed in a wedding contract at age 8-days-old, she was officially married at the age of twelve in 1476, to her cousin Louis, Duke of Orléans (aged 14).
How old should a little bride be? On average, most little brides in a wedding fall between 4 and 8 years old. They're typically at the same age as flower girls.
The national average age for marriage today in the United States is 27 years old for women and 29 years old for men. This, of course, varies from state to state. Most people will marry between the ages of 25 and 30. Women get married at a younger average age than men get married.
In the middle ages, girls were typically in their teens when they married, and boys were in their early twenties. The arrangement of the marriage was based on monetary worth. The family of the girl who was to be married would give a dowry, or donation, to the boy she was to marry.
Until 1823 the legal age in England for marriage was 21 years for men and women although after 1823 a male could marry as young as 14 without parental consent and a girl at 12 although most girls didn't marry until around the ages of 18 to 23.
In 1900, as the lower chart shows, the typical young groom was almost twenty-six and his bride was four years younger. For the next half century, couples approaching the altar grew steadily younger and the age difference between bride and groom diminished.
[i] Called the “companionate marriage”, this ideal shaped the way that people met and courted in the 19th century. The ideal of marriages based on love gave young people, especially women, a new level of agency in their choice of partners.
Once or twice a month, she might indulge in a lukewarm soak; lukewarm, because unnecessarily hot and cold temperatures were both believed to cause health problems from rashes to insanity. During the weeks between baths, the Victorian lady would wash off with a sponge soaked in cool water and vinegar.
The 1847 article continued: “When the weight of the body has reached its average maximum, men weigh 139 pounds, women 112 pounds.” Fifty years later the numbers remained about the same.
It was fairly common for these servants to be married and have families. Female servants who wanted to marry did so with the understanding that their position in the house was forfeit. Occasionally, the head housekeeper and butler were a couple, but she only joined the staff after her children were raised.
A courtship generally began with simple conversations. From this point, the couple might take a walk together, with a chaperone in attendance. The next step of a courtship could include spending time together at social events. If everything progressed well between the lady and gentleman, they would become engaged.
Only Estonia sets the minimum age at 15 years. In Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Slovenia, no minimum age for marriage is stipulated in the legislation.
(i) Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The common law rule that a person does not attain majority until he is 21 years old applied in England and in Ireland. A person was a minor whether he was 1 year old or 20 years old, and remained such until he reached the age of 21 years.
For the longest time in Great Britain, a marriage was final and legally, you were unable to dissolve the union. When divorces were allowed in the Victorian Era, only men were allowed and eligible to request for the dissolution of their marriage. Not only men, but only wealthy men were able to request a divorce.
You could get married as soon as you hit puberty – and parental consent was not required. Marriage was the only acceptable place for sex in the medieval period, and as a result Christians were allowed to marry from puberty onwards, generally seen at the time as age 12 for women and 14 for men.
In most traditions, these witnesses included family, friends, and neighbors. According to historian, Alison Weir, this consummation ritual was also practiced by the royals in in medieval times.
The church stipulated that both the bride and groom must be at least 21 years of age to marry without the consent of their families; the most common ages of marriage were 22 for women, 24 for men; the median ages were 22.8 for women and 25.5 for men; the average ages were 24 years for women and nearly 28 years for men.
From the mid-1970s until 2018 there was a steady and ongoing increase in the median age of men and women at first marriage. This upward trend halted between 2018 and 2020 but continued again in 2021. In 2021 the median age of men was 30.8 years, and women 29.4 years.
According to Unchained At Last, the youngest girls to marry in 2000–2010 were three 10-year-old girls in Tennessee who married men aged 24, 25, and 31 in 2001. The youngest boy to marry was an 11-year-old, also in Tennessee, who married a 27-year-old woman in 2006.
Then, in 1947, soon after the end of the war, the Civil Code was amended to raise the age for both men and women by one year, to 18 for men and 16 for women. With the recent revision of the law in 2022, the age of marriage has been set at 18, eliminating the differences between men and women.