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

[tuffsmurf]

Yes, this is very correct. And this means a 15-year old wouldn’t feel that she had ”lived half her life” and needed to get married asap, the way some people in their 40s do today. An illness could very well take her, but if things went well she would live until her 50s and beyond.

 

[stpurl]

Women though did have childbirth which was often the greatest mortality risk for those particular times, depending on various factors. Handwashing, sterilization, simple hygiene as we know it were simply not achievable or just not even thought of. While nobility often had high personal cleanliness standards, bathing each day, fresh linen, the poor serf/peasant was lucky to have ‘two’ outfits. . .per year or more; was lucky if he or she had access to reasonably clean well water, was luckily if he or she were versed enough to know about the efficacy of boiling water , medicinal herbs, salves, etc. There were more loci for infections/germs to enter. And a young woman of 20 who had already had perhaps one term birth and perhaps lost one or two to miscarriage, who did basically hard physical labor to boot on a spartan diet, was probably severely anemic (the so-called ‘greensickness’ of the Elizabethan era) to begin with, even an ‘average’ blood loss in an otherwise normal labor could severely tax a young but compromised body.

Even King Henry VIII lost his third wife to a puerpal fever following the birth of Edward Tudor.

However, this greatly changed with the mid 19th century and the pioneering work especially of Ignaz Semmelweis regarding the need for handwashing and the proper sanitation around doctors and mothers.

 

[Avermaria]

What theologians actually protested against child marriage? I thought it was widely accepted and not seen as wrong

 

[neophyte]

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

Then the onus is on you to show that it is immoral for a young woman of child-bearing age, who is capable of fulfilling the obligations of adulthood specific to her culture and who has sufficient emotional and spiritual maturity, to be married, merely becaue she hasn’t attained whatever arbitrary age suits your personal fancy.

 

[fredystairs]

It doesn’t bother me that 12 year olds could get married anymore than it bothers me that boys at 8 years old could be cabin boys and powder monkeys on warships. That is the way it was back then.

Pax

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

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

Then the onus is on you to show that it is immoral for a young woman of child-bearing age, who is capable of fulfilling the obligations of adulthood specific to her culture and who has sufficient emotional and spiritual maturity, to be married, merely becaue she hasn’t attained whatever arbitrary age suits your personal fancy.

I don’t accept that there is a difference in environmental conditions that would change a young girl’s psychological suitability for marriage. There is most definitely a cultural difference in what is acceptable but that is something entirely different.

As to the age at which a girl could be married…yes, I agree. It’s quite arbitrary. It’s nonsensical to say that a girl is not ready for marriage on Monday but is on Tuesday. But I’d suggest that 14 is too young by a long way.

 

[Freddy]

It doesn’t bother me that 12 year olds could get married anymore than it bothers me that boys at 8 years old could be cabin boys and powder monkeys on warships. That is the way it was back then.

Pax

So things were morally acceptable at one time but not at another?

What do you think is morally acceptable to you today which won’t be in years to come?

 

[Tommy999]

What do you think is morally acceptable to you today which won’t be in years to come?

At the rate we’re going, allowing statues of former US presidents like Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, along with religious figures such as Junipero Serra and perhaps even Jesus to remain upright.

 

[neophyte]

But I’d suggest that 14 is too young by a long way.

As I indicated, your personal fancy is not the arbiter of morality.

The Church at the time said that twelve might not be too young, and her parents said that in her case it wasn’t. Who the heck are you to say otherwise?

 

[LilyM]

Yes, this is very correct. And this means a 15-year old wouldn’t feel that she had ”lived half her life” and needed to get married asap, the way some people in their 40s do today. An illness could very well take her, but if things went well she would live until her 50s and beyond.

No, but she would see women in their prime dropping like flies all.around her from complications of childbirth, and people.in general from plague, smallpox or other infectious diseases or causes.

So she would certainly feel her mortality much more keenly than a young lady of today. And have more of a sense that if she were going to have children she had best start youngish.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

neophyte:

Freddy:

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

Then the onus is on you to show that it is immoral for a young woman of child-bearing age, who is capable of fulfilling the obligations of adulthood specific to her culture and who has sufficient emotional and spiritual maturity, to be married, merely becaue she hasn’t attained whatever arbitrary age suits your personal fancy.

I don’t accept that there is a difference in environmental conditions that would change a young girl’s psychological suitability for marriage. There is most definitely a cultural difference in what is acceptable but that is something entirely different.

As to the age at which a girl could be married…yes, I agree. It’s quite arbitrary. It’s nonsensical to say that a girl is not ready for marriage on Monday but is on Tuesday. But I’d suggest that 14 is too young by a long way.

In various subcultures within the United States (and I imagine other places as well, mutatis mutandis for different educational and economic systems), many people basically end their educations with high school graduation, fully enter the adult world, and get married within a year or so. It is not unknown for couples, who have gone to school together, to get married right after they graduate from high school. I knew a couple who did this, two weeks after graduation, and they have a very happy marriage to this day, 40+ years later, three children, several grandchildren, the son is a Lutheran minister. So while it’s not something I’d generally recommend, it can and does work.

But 18 is not 12, it is not 14, and it is not 16.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But I’d suggest that 14 is too young by a long way.

As I indicated, your personal fancy is not the arbiter of morality.

The Church at the time said that twelve might not be too young, and her parents said that in her case it wasn’t. Who the heck are you to say otherwise?

It’s up to them to make that decision. They’d be in a better position to make it than I would. But I don’t know or have ever known any girl of that age where the question of her getting married and having sex would even be entertained.

If you think it’s ok then that’s your call.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

What do you think is morally acceptable to you today which won’t be in years to come?

At the rate we’re going, allowing statues of former US presidents like Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, along with religious figures such as Junipero Serra and perhaps even Jesus to remain upright.

That wasn’t the question. I want to know what someone personally thinks is ok now that wont be in years to come. If someone thought it was ok for children to be involved in war or to work in mines many years ago but it’s not acceptable now, then what’s personally acceptable now that eventually wont be?

 

[neophyte]

But I don’t know or have ever known any girl of that age where the question of her getting married and having sex would even be entertained.

Neither have I, not at twelve, but that’s not what you said your position is. You indicated that it was not merely imprudent in most cases, but positively immoral for someone to get married at that age, but you don’t seem able to support that idea with anything more than your own bare assertion. And that doesn’t make it.

Once again: the onus is on you to show that it is immoral for a young woman of child-bearing age, who is capable of fulfilling the obligations of adulthood specific to her culture and who has sufficient emotional and spiritual maturity, to be married, merely because she hasn’t attained whatever arbitrary age suits your personal fancy.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But I don’t know or have ever known any girl of that age where the question of her getting married and having sex would even be entertained.

Neither have I, not at twelve, but that’s not what you said your position is. You indicated that it was not merely imprudent in most cases, but positively immoral for someone to get married at that age, but you don’t seem able to support that idea with anything more than your own bare assertion. And that doesn’t make it.

I think it would be extremely unwise and probably harmful. I class a twelve year old as a child. That a grown man would take a sexual interest in a child would undoubtedly be immoral in my opinion (we’re talking about the age of consent here). A child is not in a position to be able to make those decisions.

And I can’t believe I actually had to type that out. If I’d started a thread suggesting that I was interested in a twelve year old and asking if sex would be ok if she consented I would rightly be howled down.

Could I use culture as a reason why it woukd be ok? Could I suggest that she was more mature than her age would indicate? I wouldn’t be surprised that if I gave my personal details that some people would rightly report me to the authorities.

Please tell me that you are not arguing that it could be acceptable.

 

[mary77]

youve just described every topic portrayed in every soap opera tv show. The ways of the world are not the way of Christ.

 

[tafan2]

People did not marry at the age of twelve. I suspect canon law set that age so low was due to arranged marraiages among certain classes with this marraiages being done early, by pricy often, for business or other reasons. Just guessing.

 

[Freddy]

People did not marry at the age of twelve. I suspect canon law set that age so low was due to arranged marraiages among certain classes with this marraiages being done early, by pricy often, for business or other reasons. Just guessing.

Children were being married in Italy prior to 1971. This from the NYT at that time:

Italy Is Reforming Family Laws To Bar Dowries, Child Marriage (Published 1971)

Italian Chamber of Deputies approves reform of family law that would do away with discrimination against illegitimate children

www.nytimes.com

"ROME, Dec. 4—The Chamber of Deputies this week approved a reform of family law that proclaims full equality of the sexes and is bound to have a pro found impact on the Italian way of life.

The proposed legal changes would do away with child marriages…"

 

[AlbMagno]

The consent to marry was largely PARENTAL…not “informed consent” of the bride

So, were the majority of marriages before 1900 invalid?

 

[GodIsPerfection]

So, were the majority of marriages before 1900 invalid?

ANSWER: No. The bride and groom still had to say “I do.” during the vows.