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From: Barbara Leak <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Commonlaw Marriage
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 18:31:37 -0800
References: <21.152672a7.293aa87b@aol.com>


----- Original Message ----- >
> Isn't 30 years for a male and 25 years for a female pretty old for a first
> marriage?


It all depends on who, when and where are researching. _Albion's Seed: Four
British Folkways in America_, by David Hackett Fischer, provides the
following averages:

In colonial, Puritan Massachusetts men tended to marry for the first time at
age 26, and women at about 23. The groom was typically only a few years
older than the bride.
In colonial, Anglican Virginia, the men also married at about 25 or 26, but
the women married at about 17. The typical bride and groom were separated in
age by nearly ten years.
The Quakers of the mid-Atlantic colonies married later. The average for men
was around 28, and women around 25.
And the Scots-Irish settlers of the backcountry married at an average age of
21 for men, and 19 for women.

Food for thought.

Barbara

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