Marriage ages in early 17th century

[trencrom]

A few things I have seen of late have got me thinking that peoples' ages at marriage, at least in Penwith, may well have tended to be earlier in the first part of the 17th century than they were in, say, the eighteenth.
Eg Johanna Vibert chr. 1622 marr. 1639, James Quick chr. 1632 marr. 1649.
Now perhaps the same is true of John Phillips as well, although that admitedly is still unconfirmed.
What do others think? Is there any further evidence of this?

[Cornish Terrier]

I do agree with you there but have found, from experience, that a pursuit of further corroborative evidence is required to satisfy many people.

From memory - the marital age for a male in the early days was 14 and for a female 12. (But that needs checking, too.)

I know that one person 'ripped into me' about the Quick family of the early-mid 1600's over a similar point.

We will pursue the Phillips line and, should nothing else present itself to confirm otherwise, will take the view that a 'young age' marriage occurred.

Look forward to comments from others.

[Zenobia]

My experience so far in Western Cornwall in the 1600s and 1700s has shown me that late marriages were actually the norm. I have found more than the average amount of ancestors who made their first marriage in their very late 20s or early 30s, both male and female.

This phenomena has occurred with enough regularity, that when I see a Cornish person of that era (particularly the males) marrying as early as, say 19, I am suspicious of it.

That does not mean, however, that it did not occasionally happen.

A couple examples:

1. I have a John Harry in Gwithian who was married to his first wife at age 19 - had it not been for the fact that at his marriage, he was specifically called the son of Bennett Harry, I would have believed him the wrong person.

2. Over on the Ludgvan board I have a posting regarding the descent from Henry Edwards of Ludgvan, and I have been able to establish beyond a doubt that both Henry's son and grandson married at ages 17/18 or younger.

Now, it does appear to me, based on the evidence, that John Philips, son of Matthew, was b. late in 1607 and married by say March 1624 - so married before he turned 17. I don't like it, but the evidence speaks for itself.

I think that as a whole, people often have a preconceived notion that our ancestors married at a very early age, (frequently 14-15) but I have found this to be widely true only in the American South, and in Medieval Europe among persons of some means.

Early Cornwall, so far, for me, has consistantly shown the largest percentages of late marriages, the average for males being about 25-32 and females 23-30, with many still later. Once we hit the later 1700s and go into the 1800s in Cornwall, the age drops, 18-21 for females, for instance, being much more common.

Just as a comparison, my German American ancestors usually had males marrying age 19-22 and females age 17-20 (the Amish being at the earlier end of the range and the "Church Germans" being at the later end); and my American Quakers: 25-29 for males and 24-28 for females

[Cornish Terrier]

Another point to consider here is that, although not very big in area, Cornwall (and particularly the far West) would have been a place of quite remote villages and farms in those early days.

Might only be a mile or so between many places but that, I think, combined with working farms, mining and fishing, would have placed restrictions on the amount of socialising that might have ended up in courtship.

The legal age for marriage was quite young but .....

[Zenobia]

I've often wondered too if marriage was put off to curtail the amount of children who would be born (less mouths to feed), but if that were the case, then I would expect marriages to be later (rather than earlier) in the 1800s, when times were harder, yet it was the opposite.

Also, I found the late marriage trend even among the gentry, who would have suffered no such hardships...

Christopher Cock, for instance, married at 29.

Arthur Edwards was about 40, and his only daughter and heir Gertrude married at about 33

Henry Edwards of Lelant married at 24, but his wife was 29.

Henry's father Thomas married at about 33.

I remember when I was first trying to determine the parentage of William Trewhella who married Ann Cock - I did not think he could be the son of Martin Trewhella, as William would have had to have married at 37 - to me at the time, that seemed absurd. Now I know that is was quite common...

[Zenobia]

Incidentally, this was one of my 'planned topics' that I never got around to posting, so I am very grateful to trencom for starting it!

I think this one is very important to Cornish genealogy, and am glad we have it up here for discussion.

[Cornish Terrier]

Quite correct because you and I have, over the years, had many discussions over this very same point.

We must keep things in the perspective of the 'legalities' of the time and expect that younger marriages did occur but the main trend seems to have been a 'little later rather than earlier'.

Still need to keep a bit of a balance though about 'too young' and 'too old' - especially in combination.

[Zenobia]

ianjtrewhella said:

Still need to keep a bit of a balance though about 'too young' and 'too old' - especially in combination.

This is where the stress should always be on 'whole family genealogy' (which I think we all subscribed to - the practice of carefully examining all children of any given potential ancestor), as it can catch discrepancies, or otherwise prove (or disprove) difficult chronologies...

A quick (non-Cornish example) - I have an ancestor in Switzerland, one Fridli Wydler, who was born in 1568. His son Jacob, from whom I descend, was born in 1622. At first glance it looks unlikely, but whole family genealogy shows that Fridli was married twice, had a total of 19 children (10 to his fisrt wife, 8 to his second, and one illegitimate inbetween), that his second wife was much younger than he, and that Jacob was his last child. So once put in context, it all fits together perfectly.