you be the judge

[DeletedUser]

I don't think we are all created equal but we should all be treated as equals. Everybody is exceptional in their own way.

Aye. Can't do anything but agree.

 

[DeletedUser]

Because it was realized that those under under the age of 18 are, for the most part, not mentally mature enough to make an informed consent. Also, child marriage was/is, by and large, instituted within male-governed societies, where women did/do not have rights.

I think that might be a little too simplistic. Certainly, there were patriarchical issues at play, which are especially obvious when you are looking at marriages amongst the nobility in the Middle Ages with female children used as a property exchange for masculine power dynamics, but social unions of many different kinds did exist much earlier than that too and even in the same period, marriages amongst the lower classes had other forms and other dynamics as well. (Notably, the lack of need to register the marriage with the state, or even for the relationship to be formalised by the church.)

Marriage as we know it today essentially became the norm with the rising of the middle class during the industrial revolution, which was a time when the growing wealth of the larger population meant new luxuries. Like (significantly) wives who didn't work.

But mostly, because the question was specifically about age, I think you need to mention the issue of life expectancy.

When you are looking at average life spans of less than 30, and at extremely high infant mortality figures, obviously much younger "unions" and much younger childbearing was a necessity, if only for survival of the species.

Now, when we have the luxury of most of our young surviving and our life expectancy has more than doubled (in developed regions, anyway), that necessity has been removed. And aside from the psychological maturity issue (which can only be an arbitrary number), there are health risks associated with pregnancies in the teen years which would actually have a negative impact on both life expectancy and our live birth rate. Add to that the fact that it is not longer customary for people under those ages to work because education and "childhood" has been extended, younger marriages would not make sense economically either.

(And no, of course marriage does not have to be all about childrearing, but you can't deny that its function in that area played a role in the ways social unions developed. And no longer having those needs is also a very new luxury.)

Edited to add: And you should look into the history of "marriage" thoughout the middle ages and the industrial revolution, Dr. FP, (in virtually 100% Christian societies) before you start talking about "social norms" as though they were set in stone. All my books are in boxes or I'd provide some material for you, but off the top of my head Sex in History by R. Tannahill and The Making of the English Middle Class by Peter Earle might prove useful. (To Jim, who posed the original question... I don't know where you stand, so I can't offer any advice to you. Lol.)