[RC51]

You prove the point. What happened in the 1700's? Ah yes the Industrial revolution. Look up marriage trends in old world (Eastern European) before 1700's and you find the average age for females being married was age 12-13!

Predominately agricultural based economies have much lower ages of marriage. As a community moves from agricultural to industrial education improves the age of marriage shoots up significantly.

[Hunble]

Predominately agricultural based economies have much lower ages of marriage. As a community moves from agricultural to industrial education improves the age of marriage shoots up significantly.

Thanks, I was wondering if I was the only sane Freeper talking tonight.

Of course this is not something that I approve of, but I am much more worried about a government defining what a marriage is.

Someday, if you are not Gay or Lesbian, you could be arrested for violation of marriage the laws! Legally, any sex between a male and female could be classified as rape.

Always ask a simple question: How could the government abuse this?

[ansel12]

Orthodox slavs don’t interest me, especially when there are no numbers.

American history and American culture are at issue here and the average marrying age for females for at least the last 300 years was never below about age 22.

[LWalk18]

If you read further in the article, you would see that consummation was not assumed to immediately follow these early teen marriages. Note also that these 12-13 year old girls were generally married to 15-16 year old boys, not 50 years olds.