The age of Roman girls at marriage

Abstract

For Roman girls the legal minimum age at marriage was 12; but the law provided no sanctions and was contravened. The usual age at puberty (at least for the upper classes) was probably 13+. In fact menarche was not always a pre-condition of marriage; nevertheless marriages were usually consummated immediately. Even if pre-pubertal marriages were regarded by some as deviant, they were not exceptional and were condoned. The usual age of girls at marriage can only be guessed at from the fragmentary literary evidence, but 287 tombstones enable us to tabulate the ages of pagan and Christian girls at marriage. The modal age of the former was 12-15 (43 per cent), for the latter 15-18 (42 per cent). These inscriptions are probably most representative of the urban well-to-do. There is no serious bias towards recording low ages. Men married considerably later than girls and their deaths were recorded by their parents more frequently and until a much later age. This favouritism to boys, the early age at marriage of girls, the age differential between spouses and the high chances of early widowhood/widowerhood, have considerable significance for the study of the Roman family.