Age of Consent

[Patti]

Can anyone tell me please,what was the age you could legally get married in 1907 .

[Mary from Italy]

21 without parental consent.
With parental consent the age was 12 for a girl and 14 for a boy until 1929, when the
minimum age was raised to 16 for both sexes with parental consent or 21 without consent.

[Richard]

I thought the age was raised from 12 to 13 for girls in the late Victorian period, in a half hearted attempt at child protection, could be wrong though.

[Olde Crone Holden]

No, the 13 year old marriage age never got through parliament. I think the 13 year old girl thing was to protect them against child prostitution etc - until then there was no minimum age of sexual consent. If you married at 12, then your marriage vows gave sexual consent anyway.

There was also a short period during the Interregnum, when Cromwell's lot raised the minimum marriage age to 16 for both sexes, but this was often ignored and was reversed as soon as the Monarchy returned, so only a period of about 25 years.

I SUSPECT, certainly in my family, that a Vicar would sometimes dispense with the need for parental consent for underage couples, particularly if the bride was pregnant - better to marry than to burn!

OC

[Richard]

Thanks for clearing that up OC all, as usual all very interesting and have learnt something there. Have to say though only really come across one or two 'child brides' in my tree, Whatever the law mine still seemed to get married from around 16/17 onwards even though still officialy 'minors' at that age. I'm guessing then it was never really common place marriages at 12 or 13, whatever the law, or perhaps I'm wrong?

[Olde Crone Holden]

No, I don't think it was commonplace, but it was a sort of social service thingy, lol!

A man with eleven children, poor as churchmice, might see a way of feeding his 12 year old daughter by marrying her off to some old man. They do not appear to have had the distate for this back then - it was a practical solution to a pressing problem, the girl would be respectable and safe and probably quite thrilled to be running her own household rather than being a skivvy in someone else's.

I doubt if you would ever find any 12 year old girls marrying 14 year old boys - they would not have had the wherewithal to set up home for a start.

This marriage age goes back to time immemorial and was of course, for the benefit of the gentry, who arranged marriages as soon as their children were born and sometimes even before!

The age of 12 for girls and 14 for boys was fixed as being the earliest the two would be expected to fulfil their marriage vows, which had been taken by proxy by their parents at the time the marriage was arranged, although often a daughter would be sent to her "husband's" home to learn the ways of the household before she became a true bride.

In my own tree I have a 13 year old girl marrying a 15 year old boy - she was pregnant. She eventually gave him 12 healthy children and he inherited the farm from his father, so not much harm done there!

OC

[Richard]

Youngest I have in my tree was 5xg gran who must have been at best 13 perhaps still 12, and her husband 23 or 24 when they married in 1823. This was Roman Catholic in Ireland though, 1820's, I'm sure I've read somewhere this was far more common over there, amongst Catholics, than in England, Scotland and Wales, though the reason why that should be I don't recall.

I have plenty in my tree made mothers as young as 14 15 but none of the men seem to have stuck around and done the decent thing, these children all end up stepsons 5 or 6 years later...quite often to a much older man...perhaps because the girls were seen as 'sullied'?

[Patti]

OO thank you, stirred up a nest here I think,I only wondered because my Gran married at 17.but put 20 on the Certificate ?

[Little Nell]

Odd, as at 20 she would still have needed parental consent!