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Originally Posted by jack-the-ripa
What's more, in the middle ages at 18 girls used to be considered a bit old for marriage. At 18 girls used to have at least one baby and most used to marry at 14-15... Marrying at 12 wasn't considered too much of an unussual thing back then.
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Of course the average age of marriage was lower. With the average life expectancy in the Middle Ages being around 35, girls married earlier, usually not long after becoming biologically women. I am not saying that people were old and died at 35 but that the infant mortality rate was somewhere around 30% (50% if you ask some people). Along with that you have up to 20% of women dying in childbirth or of related complication/illnesses. It only makes sense that marriage would be happening earlier, especially since the sole role of women at the time was to have children.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jack-the-ripa
And hey, weren't the medieval times the period when some of the greatest phylosophical and cultural books were written?
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No..this period of time is not know for great philosophy and culture...that is the Renaissance. The Middle Ages is known for the Crusades, the Black Death, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church's rise to power, and the occasional Viking or Mongol invasion.
Not to say that there wasn't philosophy, but you find it to be more theological, such as Thomas Aquinas, rather than what you find in the periods before and after the Middle Ages. Of course, in the age of the Inquisition when many ideas were viewed as heresy who can blame them for sticking to a theological realm. But to call this period of time and age of culture and philosophy is to forget that over half of the time period is historically referred to as the
Dark Ages.
B.