Age at Marriage

[bryoung]

I have come across a great great aunt who was married in 1884 at the age of thirteen.

Isabella Bell, born 29/04/1870 [696/00 0014] married William Elliot in February 1884 [691/00 0012].

I suspect that William was a lodger with the Bell's in 1881, aged 26.

I understand that the legal limit for a girl at that time was twelve but does anyone know how commom this was?

[emanday]

I've certainly not come across any in my lot. The youngest one I've found, so far, was 16. However, I seem to remember someone else had a "child bride" registration.

Just had a thought I've never really calculated the ages of some of my girls from the OPR pre-1855 entries.

Off to do some calculating...

[Russell]

Hi

I would think that in the mid 1800's marrying at thirteen would be very uncommon. Although I have no actual evidence for my view I would think it would be a topic that would be raised frequently on TalkingScot if one or two instances cropped up.
With a couple of thousand members searching a huge range of family lines back 300 years we would have dug up a few examples by this time
With current thinking trying to keep children as children until they have left university almost, such liaisons would give curent thinkers quite a shock and cause a lot of discussion.
Not really an answer I know, but lack of evidence neither proves nor disproves a case.

Russell

[kathyc]

I don't know how uncommon it was, but think it might also have been the case for GGGG grandmother. The only birth record I've found so far is the IGI, but both that and all the census entries I can find for the family suggest she was twelve or thirteen when she was married in 1813 to her then 22 or 23 year old husband, fifteen when her first child was born. I've been poking around in hopes of disproving it, but lean towards my modern sensibilities, rather than her age, being the problem.

Kathy