Another task for bored people!

[Elizabeth Herts]

I have started a task which I have been meaning to do for a long time.

I'm looking at the ages at which men and women from my tree and from my husband's tree married , because I noticed that some of them did not rush into marriage at a young age.

It's very interesting.

I have just looked at a few from my direct line so far, and I have entered them on a table.

I have then put the results into decades:


1770s Woman 31 Man 40

1780s Woman 23 Man 23

1800-1810
Woman 22 Man 24
Woman 28 Man 26

1810-1820
Woman 22 Man 26
Woman 25 Man 21
Woman 22 Man 22
Woman 24 Man 36
Woman 32 Man 32

1830s
Woman 17 Man 20
Woman 22 Man 23

1840s
Woman 20 Man 21
Woman 27 (Widow) Man 22
Woman 23 Man 23
Woman 24 Man 29

1850s
W 34 (Widow) M 45 (W)
W 27 M 27

1860s
W 22 M 23

1870s
W 21 M 28
W 26 M 26

1880s
W 26 M 29

1890s
W 24 M 25

1900-10
W 20 M 28

1910-20
W 22 M 28
W 23 M 27

1930s
W 21 M 25

1940s W 24 M 23

I am going to keep updating this. It will be interesting to see how young/old the people marrying were.

I have just one teenager marrying so far, my great-great-grandmother Charlotte Jane Hatch who was just 17. Her husband, James Thomas Purkis, was 20.

[Little Nell]

Youngest bride I have was 15 and youngest groom 19.

The majority of my lot marry in their 20s to early 30s, but I do have a chap who married aged 69 and his bride was 54.

[Richard]

Oldest, my 4 x great grandad was single until the age of 53, then went on to marry and have 5 children, the last at 69!

Youngest bride was 6xgreat gran at 13 in Ireland

I did a similar thing some time ago, and worked out an average age at marriage in my tree, (for direct ancestors) think it was something like 24 for men, and a bit lower, maybe 21 or 22 for the women.

[Elizabeth Herts]

This was to some extent prompted by my m-i-l saying that people married really young in previous centuries.

Then I found that some of the men in my husband's family "hung on" for a long time before taking the plunge (lol!). In fact, it is this part of the family which is bumping up the average!!

[Vicky the Viking]

when I have time I will do some serious stats on my bunch, but my gut feeling is that the age (at first marriage) depended more on how well-to-do they were.
But an awful lot in the 19th century seem to marry when the bride is 21 (or a year or two either side depending on the urgency LOL), and the 20th century brides tend to be older, perhaps late twenties.
Many exceptions though. My oldest first marriage is a 17 yr old bride marrying a 50 yr old man (late 18th C). and I also have a 41/42 year old man marrying for the first time in 1841, (he'd been away at sea) his bride was about 10 years younger.

[BC]

Ah, but what do you do when it says ' full age ' ? Are they telling ' porkies ' or do you accept it ?

[Elizabeth Herts]

A lot of my marriage certificates state "of full age" but for most of them I have the christnening record and the death certificate, so I can calculate their age with some certainty.

I agree that the more affluent people married slightly later.

[Little Nell]

I would think that if you were affluent you had no need to marry; if you were poor you couldn't afford to!

[Vicky the Viking]

I agree that the more affluent people married slightly later.

unless they were royalty - children were often married off before puberty, to reinforce (or establish) a political tie. Happened in some of the wealthier families too.

I wonder if my 50 yr old with the 17 yr old bride was because there wasn't another suitable lady anywhere in the area, so they had to wait till she was of a respectable age to give him an heir - their first child was baptised exactly nine months after the wedding.