This just came to mind because I genuinely am just curious, but off the top of my head, 'if she bleeds' was never something that a predominantly white society practiced, not even the medieval period.
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Even then, it was mostly noble children that would get married that young due to how important marriages were for the nobles, so it was still no where near as common as widely believed.
One thing I was wondering, because arranged noble marriages for diplomatic purposes did come to mind—when a pair of very young (12-14, say) nobles "married" did they actually consummate the marriages immediately, or did they wait? Like how there are historical examples of extremely young "kings," but in practice those kings would have a regent ruling for them until they came of age.
It was common for such diplomatic or status marriages to have a clause forbidding ''consumation'' before age 16.
Probably depended quite a bit on how vital it was that they create an heir.
Beyond that though, I'm unsure. How much social pressure the young married couple would experience might be rather rooted in their culture, which can vary a bit from one European country to another on something like that.
Lawrence Gardner traces royal families lines back to biblical times. It was an end justifies the means issue. There are very good lectures on the tube. But, they're old, the video quality is yuck. But, LG died before better quality were made.
You're describing Mahammad.
"Mostly" discounts the outliers in society. Nobles had it occur to them more often per-capita, but considering nobles were outnumbered a hundred to one, I suspect that more girls were married off young among commoners.
A family has a tough time feeding the kids one winter, and there's a decent enough 20-something bachelor nearby who can take care of her, and the daughter gets married at 14 instead of 18.
Warped as it may sound, I wouldn't be surprised if the age and timing sometimes depended a lot on when a young woman had "blossomed", to the optimal appeal and value as a prospective wife and mother. Which I imagine might've had some range and variability, while also factoring in mortality and different cultural norms of the time period.
And I think in some respects there'd be a similar sort of expectation for the ideal male bachelor as well. Obviously with different kinds of qualifiers.
All of this is of course that those involved weren't pressed for time with regards to financial or political concerns. And I am totally hypothesizing her without an solid evidence to back up my thoughts.
Well it's not just that, the other excuse I've seen is because of the high mortality rate in that society. People weren't living to their 70s-90s back then as often.
People did die of disease more often then, but the average age expectancy is heavily weighted by the high child mortality of the time too.
Yeah there is - it's called mental maturity
This comment makes me think you need to babysit a dozen teen mom's with screaming babies for at least 8 hours straight.
The American system was designed to destroy the nuclear family. This is part of the civil rights movement, that's why it's not taught anymore. But, it was in my history books.
First. There was NEVER a welfare queen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen#:~:text=The%20%22welfare%20queen%22%20stereotype%20is,morals%2C%20and%20avoidance%20of%20work.
This propaganda was retaliation, and there are still idiots that believe it.
There are programs to help teen mom's. Housing, school, etc. But, these are based on household income. So, the man can't live there. Then it was taken a step further. Any assistance given to the Mom, and child get is directly taken from the father.
This is why so many birth certificates don't have a father listed. It's the only way to have a two income household. Because what I explained above means below poverty level. ( take a look at those numbers) It's taking from the left to give to the right.