There was a show on TV, I think yesterday...I usually turn the TV off after the noon news, but anyway, the TV was playing while I was typing on this thing, and I recall them showing 12-13 year-old girls which looked to be 17-20. Jail-bait for young boys...we old codgers know better... Often, the second or third wife was as young as the children of the first wife, because women(and their parents) wanted to avoid the "Spinster stigma" and they may not have been attractive enough to get a man their own age...After the flower of their youth, they begin to wonder if they are ever going to find a mate, so when an older man came along, they jumped at it...and the fathers may have been encouraged by some monetary inducement (dowry). I know that I didn't want to give my prized possessions to the first clod who came along... so I made the guys come talk to me first, before I consented...My late mother-in-law's last two husbands (she outlived both) came and asked me if it was okay, even though I was much their junior...I was the dominant male in that family...and when I ever marry again, I expect to ask the elder son, or elder son-in-law(or whoever is proper) before I marry their mother...It just makes for good future family relations, and if I am not man enough to do that, then I don't deserve her love and affection... Two of my father's aunts never married...The older confessed that the only boy she ever cared for married someone else...I don't know about the younger one since she died when I was about four...albeit I remember playing with her. They were not gorgeous models, but they were attractive looking, as far as the photos I have of them... Call me old-fashioned if you want, I still believe that when you marry, you get the whole family, not just the spouse... Gerry Gieger Look UP! Luke 21:28/Acts 1:11 >From: lynda wilson <lwilson@life.edu> >Reply-To: GA-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com >To: GA-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: [GA-Roots] Marrying Ages >Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:42:50 -0400 > >For some reason a lot of southern women married young. I >think it was to get away from a big family with too many >mouths to feed or since women were considered property >of the father, maybe to avoid sexual abuse. Or the sons >moved out and needed a wife to take care of them and >maybe children from a first wife. >I have several lines where the women married very young. >Unfortunately, marrying at 11 is not that uncommon. >Lynda > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com