The Reality about 16th Century Marriages

Random Fun Fact about history

What You've Heard

Everybody knows that people in the 16th century married young at the ages of about 14 or 12.....Right?

The Truth

Totally, wrong. It always annoys me when people think of the Renaissance Era in that way. Most people married around 25. If anyone was going to be marrying young it was wealthy people, even then it rarely happened.

Though the age of consent was pretty low: 12 for a girl and 14 for a boy.

Quotes on Marriage from Early Modern Contemporaries

-"A man finds himself seven years older a day after his marriage," --Sir Francis Bacon

-" There are good marriages, but no delightful ones," --Duke of Rochefoucald

-"I believe marriages would in general be happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the lord chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter,"--Dr. Johnson

Sources:

Forty thousand quotations, prose and poetical by George G. Harrap: http://books.google.com/books?id=mToeAQAAMAAJ&dq=quotations&source=gbs_navlinks_s

The Age of Marriage: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html