False.... that they married in the mid 20 had to do with the military service, most of them waited until they had completed their duty. But you can see on that list, that there were at least 3 teenage men, 17, 18 and 19, and if you figure that there were mostly only 60-80 houses in a village, you can see that those farm boys were taking over the farm from the aging family. Also, consider that not everybody is from the same age group, they are staggered throughout. The others quite obviously completed service and married later than those that were exempted from service remaining at home. Also, some nobles who were training men for special jobs in their economic fields (brewery, mining, glassmaking, tanning, leather work for horses, woodworkers, builder, brickmakers and bricklayers, masons, glass blowers, etc.) were often exempted from service and it was encouraged that the men learned a craft before they married. Aida On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 5:42 PM, <TRIPLEDE@aol.com> wrote: > I think the reason they waited for so long was that the age of consent at > the time was either age 24 or 26. Not wanting the hassel to argue with the > parents they waited but, there were also some "illegitimate" births that > were > later made "legitimate" by marriage. > > DDorman > German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >