Does it bother anyone else the marriageable age was 12 before?

[HomeschoolDad]

This raises another question, as the laity is it a sin to critcize or question the Church’s previous law and decisions even if the Church has changed these laws?

It is no sin to criticize either past or present Church laws, as long as we keep in mind that the Holy Spirit is ultimately in charge — though He could simply permit a law to be thus-and-so, rather than positively willing it. He would not allow a law gravely detrimental to souls to exist for any long period of time.

 

[tuffsmurf]

Interestingly, fertility in teenage girls is comparably low, with 80 % of menstrual cycles being anavulatory during the first year. Periods are typically irregular during the first 18-36 months after menarche. The height of female fertility is not reached until 6-7 years aftermenarche.

 

[TheHolyTrinity]

 

[mary77]

I read long ago that the church warned that contraception was going to delay if not eliminate marriage and take away a sense of love produced responsibility of parenthood and spousal vocation to one another. The church said that the poor were going to be most harmed by this phenomena because the men without responsibilitys to family would suffer from " tom foolery" and end up in prison and ruined lives. Look around. And what was the reason for this idea to delay marriage? To harvest fetal tissue by the unwanted pregnancys.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

TheLittleLady:

Marriage happened at a much younger time in past times and places. We cannot view this through 2020 colored glasses.

Mary was probably 14 when Christ was born.

There’s no need to go back two thousand years. 14 is the current age at which a girl in Italy (and hence in the Vatican State) can marry, have sex and give birth.

Just out of curiosity, who ever gets married within Vatican City State?.

I’ll bet that no-one has. But it’s the age that’s acceptable to the church.

 

[AdamP88]

I got married at 22 and some people seem to think that is too young as well, but that mindset is just ridiculous according to me.

My wife was 22 when we married. I think the idea out there is that you need to “live life” before you settle down. As if you can’t do that when you’re married??

 

[neophyte]

Then why specify that 12 in an agrarian society might possibly not be too young? As opposed to an industrial one?

It’s baffling to me how the obvious differences between pre-industrial agrarian and modern industrial societies are not apparent to you.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Then why specify that 12 in an agrarian society might possibly not be too young? As opposed to an industrial one?

It’s baffling to me how the obvious differences between pre-industrial agrarian and modern industrial societies are not apparent to you.

They are apparent. But what is not is why 12 might be morally acceptable in one but not the other. You missed tbe opportunity to explain in your last post. Feel free to explain in your next.

 

[neophyte]

They are apparent. But what is not is why 12 might be morally acceptable in one but not the other. Feel free to explain.

You might ask someone who made that argument. I’m certain that I did not.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

They are apparent. But what is not is why 12 might be morally acceptable in one but not the other. Feel free to explain.

You might ask someone who made that argument. I’m certain that I did not.

It was the point I was making. You must have missed it.

 

[babochka]

Did young people marry before they had even reached puberty?

Twelve was the lower limit, the age at which interventions could be made based on on that factor alone. It was the age of consent. Some girls had reached puberty by that age, but not all. I assume some common sense was generally employed. Marriage records from the middle ages and beyond show that the average marriage age for women was much older, at times even into the mid-20s. Western European marriage pattern - Wikipedia

The brain is not fully developed either, but I have a feeling people didn’t comprehend this back in those times,

The brain is not fully developed until 25 and we know this in modern times, yet young people still marry. It is a process that is complete at 25 and ongoing at younger ages. We can’t stop young people from making decisions until the are fully mature; we can only provide a family and societal support structure. We know this now from brain scans. They knew it in past times from observation and experience.

 

[babochka]

Nobody said there were no old people - look it the average life span at that time - which mean the average person died at that age.

The statistics skew younger because of the high infant mortality rate. If you made it past five years old, you had an excellent chance of outliving have the average age by many years.

 

[CathBoy1]

How old was Mary?

According to church tradition our lady was 13 when she was betrothed to Saint Joseph, who was according tradition I believe in his 60s.
Our lady was a consecrated virgin, so the marital act was not expected of her in her betrothal to Saint Joseph, and Saint Joseph was a widower who had children of his own in his previous marriage.
Their marriage would’ve been completely based on economic and social reasons.

What we must understand is that in the past marriage was very different from what it is today, look at the case of the Virgin Mary, sex wasn’t expected of her as she was a consecrated virgin from the age of three.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I read long ago that the church warned that contraception was going to delay if not eliminate marriage and take away a sense of love produced responsibility of parenthood and spousal vocation to one another. The church said that the poor were going to be most harmed by this phenomena because the men without responsibilitys to family would suffer from " tom foolery" and end up in prison and ruined lives. Look around. And what was the reason for this idea to delay marriage? To harvest fetal tissue by the unwanted pregnancys.

I’ve never heard the last assertion — if I may say so, it’s kind of far-fetched — but whether you believe it is immoral, a positive moral good, or morally neutral, it is impossible to over-estimate the effects of contraception upon the human race and the world. There are very few things in society that are not ultimately touched by the availability of easy, efficient, reliable, and relatively inexpensive means to separate the procreative end of the sex act from the unitive end. And I would acknowledge this even if I thought contraception were a good thing.

Some things it has made possible (or necessary, as the case may be):

• Women can freely enter the workplace and pursue any career they desire
• They can confine their fertility to a specific desired time frame, and either stay home to raise the children, or deposit them at day care (does any mother take six, seven, eight children to day care?)
• People can have premarital sex to their hearts’ delight without fearing pregnancy (and there is always abortion to take care of “unhappy little accidents”)
• Spouses can engage in extramarital affairs without the other spouse being any the wiser (if the wife gets pregnant, she can always say it is the husband’s child, though DNA testing is making that less feasible these days, thank God! — or she can agitate for an abortion)
• People can pursue advanced careers and degrees even while married — just postpone pregnancy “until we’re ready”
• Fewer children make it possible for the family to have a more affluent lifestyle, which often requires the wife to work, as noted above
• And not to be crude, but the availability of consequences-free sex makes it less necessary for men who desire sex, to marry in the first place, or to marry as early — no man wants to take the chance of his paramour getting pregnant and having a claim upon his earnings for 18 years
• Likewise, women who desire free and abundant sex can do so without consequences — there’s a well-known “city” TV show where the female characters do precisely this
• And in dating, in the secular world, it is “just understood” that sex will take place no later than the third date, or around the sixth date “if the woman has good morals” — sometimes sex “right up front”, what is called a “hookup”, is expected

I’m sure there are many more, these are just the first ones that immediately come to mind.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Also not to go unnoticed is the fact that any demographic group that contracepts near or below its replacement level, is committing demographic suicide. In the meantime, those demographics that value and prize childbearing will only grow in power and influence. Likewise, demographics that have children at younger ages will be correspondingly young, and a younger population is preferable to an aging population for many reasons.

 

[Steeevyo]

Mary was 15 …
Live expectation went barely over thirty years.
Humanity did not survive by living according to today’s materialist standards.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Just out of curiosity, who ever gets married within Vatican City State?

Our maintenance Managers daughter was married at.the Vatican.

 

[tuffsmurf]

For the 100th time in this thread, the low life expectancy was due to other factors than people dying from old age or something at 30 (which never has been nor will ever be a thing).

If you still believe that most people died at age 30, think about this:
How did women have time to give birth to an average of 7 children with 3.5 years of natural child spacing due to breastfeeding? Because that was and is the reproductive pattern of pre-industrial societies.
Also, Jesus was between 30 and 35 when he died. Is he described as an old man? A senior citizen?

 

[Sarcelle]

Overall, I agree.

People did not die of old age in their 30s back in the day.

Life span was probably shorter due to infectious diseases, famine and hard labor where the body broke down prematurely.

 

[stpurl]

Perhaps the fault is with the way the phrase is structured.

The average person in the Middle Ages probably had a life expectancy into the late 30s or early 40s.

That means that, with regard to the law of averages, half the people died before their 30s and half the people died after (such that averaging out, the age was, say 38. To get there, all things considered, half the population died from ‘birth’ to age 38, and half the population died at 39, 40, 41, etc.)

Again, when my father was born the average life expectancy for a male (at birth) was 47 years. That meant that roughly half the men born that year would die at or before age 47, and half later. He lived into his 60s; his mother, who had been born in the 1870s and whose life expectancy at birth was about age 50, made it to age 100.

And that does make sense. A young man would die say before age 38 if he died in a war, in a famine, from overwork, in a plague of some type, or from some now ‘curable’ disease; mumps, measles, a pox, a respiratory ailment, appendicitis, etc.

But here’s the thing. The older one got to a point, the more likely he or she barring accidents could expect to live ‘longer’ than the average. We see that today; nonagenarians, barring accident or illness, already having passed the ‘life expectancy’ of the mid to later 80s, are more likely to live to the age of 100 than a person who is currently, say, 50, again all things considered.

But of course, plenty of nonagenarians die. Plenty of 50 year olds live to be nonagenarians, too.