Given such a small local, it's interesting that they waited so long to get married. Did they wait this long to have children too? I was surprised at the number of men who waited into their 30's. Especially in the 1700's given their lifespans!! Interesting data, that took time Dennis. Thanks Elaine -----Original Message----- >From: Dennis Nicklaus <dnicklaus@yahoo.com> >Sent: Feb 15, 2012 2:19 PM >To: "german-bohemian@rootsweb.com" <german-bohemian@rootsweb.com> >Subject: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Bohemia age at marriage -- one data point > >Earlier in this discussion, someone brought up whether men had to be able to support a family before marrying in Bohemia and how old people were when they married.  In response, I present the below data from (mostly) Bruck am Hammer (Brod nad Tichou) parish of the age at first marriage.  It shows the average age for men is 26 and women 23 when they first married. > >This is taken from my relatives in the parish records in the 1700s mostly, but a few are from the late 1600s or early 1800s. > >These are from small rural villages, roughly 50 houses (mostly Gottschau and Nakentendoerflas). > >When I was extracting my relatives from the registers, I was surprised by how late people married, and it is interesting to see the actual tables below. I believe I would find similar numbers for Damnau parish that I've gone through. > >  > >Some of the outliers, such as relatively old women marrying, come from a man remarrying an older, never-married woman after his first wife died, probably to help raise his kids (Again, in that case, it only counts as the first marriage for the woman, only the man's first marriage age would have gone into the table here). > >Earlier, Aida wrote: >>> Marriages for men at age 17 and women 16 were quite >>> common, because in "taking over the family farm" many young men could avoid military service. > > >But I find teen marriages to be pretty rare for either sex. > >Dennis > >Age at first marriage: > >male female >26 23 >24 19 >24 40 >36 28 >21 26 >24 22 >27 37 >21 22 >24 25 >22 29 >24 26 >19 19 >38 18 >23 28 >20 17 >32 24 >28 25 >26 17 >22 20 >23 20 >25 23 >24 20 >28 20 >22 21 >29 20 >22 16 >26 25 >56 24 >22 24 >42 22 >22 39 >20 18 >30 22 >30 28 >33 23 >21 22 >25 22 >22 25 >27 26 >33 26 >31 32 >24 16 >32 22 >23 21 >31 31 >25 15 >34 22 >21 22 >26 21 >32 24 >20 23 >23 27 >27 37 >31 21 >22 19 >34 24 >33 23 >28 19 >24 21 >28 20 >30 20 >25 29 >32 31 >17 22 >33 24 >27 22 >27 22 >29 22 >21 20 >30 23 >26 19 >22 31 >22 20 >21 32 > > 23 > > 17 > > 29 > > 18 > 26.67568 22 > > 26 > > 23.5375 >The last numbers are the means. >(Not a scientific or random sample, but I'm related to a decent fraction of > the population of those villages in that era.) > > >________________________________ >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