Legal Age for Sex/Marriage

This isn't a thread about lowering or raising the age of consent. Rather I had a thought after finishing a book about the early 13th century about how society views sex & marriage has changed.

In the past girls/boys got married and had sex at earlier ages than we allow now by law. Marriages of girls/boys from the ages of 9-10 etc. Sealing an agreement, improving relations between families, settling a debt, etc. Whatever the reason these marriages did occur, and weren't rare. Old men, young women, and vice Versa. And yet all that changed.

What I was wondering was how it all changed? Was there one major incident that caused marriages to start avoiding younger ages, or a series of changes?

Figured this post was relevent to Humanities since it was likely changing perceptions that cause the change in the laws to occur.

*Probably worth mentioning I'm not advocating the allowing of these marriages for younger people.

kizzyr

In the 13th century someone aged 9 or 10 was actually a lot older than they are now if you consider the life expectancy at the time. Kids were also used as commodities and so were often married or betrothed almost from the moment they were born. I think this changed as people became more self sufficient and thought for themselves more. At one stage in cannon law in the Catholic Church it was said that once a girl started menstruating she was eligable for marriage as the whole point of marriage was to have children and so why wait? It didn't matter if the girl started when she was 9 or 14. Social history like this is very interesting isn't it?

Interesting? definetly.

I was curious to know what changed it though, because as far as I was aware the Women's Lib movement started a long time afterwards, so that wouldn't have been a factor in changing both peoples perceptions of what was acceptable and also the actual law that finally chose to prevent it from happening. This is applicable to all of Europe, byw, not just Ireland, since I figure Ireland would have followed English law on all of this.

Was it perhaps the Church's influence that decided that these marriages should no longer occur, although your post above suggests that they wouldn't have influenced this change? Or perhaps a social change regarding overcrowding in cities? I honestly can't figure it out.

Improvements in life expectancy would have changed things over time, however, as far as I was aware things only really starting improving in any major way in the last 100 years.

What would have altered society's opinion so much that eventually it would become a crime to do this?

kizzyr

Deleted User wrote:

Interesting? definetly.

I was curious to know what changed it though, because as far as I was aware the Women's Lib movement started a long time afterwards, so that wouldn't have been a factor in changing both peoples perceptions of what was acceptable and also the actual law that finally chose to prevent it from happening. This is applicable to all of Europe, byw, not just Ireland, since I figure Ireland would have followed English law on all of this.

Was it perhaps the Church's influence that decided that these marriages should no longer occur, although your post above suggests that they wouldn't have influenced this change? Or perhaps a social change regarding overcrowding in cities? I honestly can't figure it out.

Improvements in life expectancy would have changed things over time, however, as far as I was aware things only really starting improving in any major way in the last 100 years.

What would have altered society's opinion so much that eventually it would become a crime to do this?

It is only in the last 150 years or so that things have changed in a big way. Before that I think the time of the Reformation was when people began to question the authority of the Church in that there was more than one way to think of something or God. By the people I mean the people of Europe. However religious change brings out the zealots and many of the new Protestant religions were even more puritanical than a pure form of Catholic faith so if parents wanted their kids married off then as they were directing God's will in that particular house the kids couldn't really change anything.
. Also by the end of the 1500s due to travel and exploration many people in Europe were being exposed to better medical care and so their life expectancy increased and it would seem with this so did the age of marriage. That said young girls were often married off at the age of 14 if it suited their parents. You move on the late 1800s and early 1900s and marriages were still arranged they just took place at a slightly later stage in their lives, but children weren't treated as children are today and very few actually had a childhood that we can identify with. Kids were in a position where they had to earn their keep and so matured much faster than children today and maybe for this reason it wasn't considered taboo for them to be sexually aware. Again though people didn't engage in casual sex as you see today so that has to be taken into consideration.
Then if you come up to the years of WW1 women actually came into their own and found a voice for their frustrations and so the suffragets came about and with that women finally began to stand up for themselves and say no to something that didn't suit them.
What do you think?

Zillah

It was caused by a general improvement in the respect for human dignity and rights. They realised that maybe sending ten year old Marie-Claire off to be boned by Old Duke Richard might not be respecting Marie-Claire's right to a happy life.