210Chapter 11
northern Europe, this normally happened in the early
or mid-twenties for both men and women, a pattern
now regarded as the Western norm (see table 11.5). In
southern Europe and among the upper classes, the cus-
tom was different. In Italy, husbands were on average
seven to ten years older than their wives, and women
were often married in their teens to men already in their
thirties or older. The most extreme disparities were
found in royal and princely families where marriages
were used to cement political alliances and might be
arranged when the bride was a mere child. Thankfully,
such unions were not immediately consummated.
Freedom to choose one’s mate was greatest at the
lower end of the social scale. Arranged marriages were
almost unknown among the landless poor, slightly
more common among established peasants, and virtu-
ally obligatory among the rich. However, the wishes of
the couple were not invariably ignored and even peas-
ants did not marry as a general rule without seeking
their parents’ blessing. Like almost everything else con-
nected with the institution of marriage, a wedding was
usually the product of delicate and informal negotia-
tions involving the couple, both families, and the vil-
lage opinion makers. The degree to which the couple
controlled the process was determined by local custom
and family attitudes and varied enormously within the
same village or social class.
When a couple publicly announced their intention
to marry, village opinion generally permitted them to
begin living together immediately. This practice was
officially confirmed by the church at the beginning of
the thirteenth century. In villages without a resident
priest, or when the costs of a wedding could not im-
mediately be met, this was often essential. If a child
was born before the sacrament of marriage could be
officially celebrated, that child was legitimate. The as-
sumption was that the couple would marry as soon as
the opportunity arose. Townspeople, wealthy peasants,
and the aristocracy could afford to be less relaxed
about such matters and tended to celebrate their family
weddings with as much ostentation as possible. Wed-
ding feasts were as central to medieval social life and
folklore as they are today.
When a medieval woman married, she was expected
to present her husband with a dowry. The early medieval
custom of giving the bride a husband’s gift had largely
disappeared by the end of the twelfth century. The
dowry was normally returnable if the husband died first.
While he lived, he controlled it and all of the other re-
sources owned by the couple. In some regions, the return
of the dowry was all that a widow could legally expect
from her husband’s estate. In others, she was entitled to
at least a portion of his property. As in all other aspects
of inheritance law, many husbands found ways to subvert
the system and provide other legacies for her support.
The choice, though, was his. Married women had
few legal rights. They could not hold property in their
own name. Though they were not to be killed or per-
manently maimed they could be beaten with impunity,
and domestic violence appears to have been even more
frequent than it is today. In some jurisdictions, women
could not testify in court. Where they could, their testi-
mony was not equal to that of a man. However, legal
status did not always reflect the balance of power in
everyday life. No two relationships were, or are, the
same, and medieval marriages ranged from the abusive
to the happily companionate. Medieval people presum-
ably did not enter into marriage with modern expecta-
tions. The idea of romantic love was not yet fully
developed and, to the degree that it existed at all, was
associated with the adulterous conventions of chivalry.Most of the statistics in the following table are taken from
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources because data
were not compiled outside of Italy in the Middle Ages.
They are probably a reasonable approximation of me-
dieval figures because the age at which women married
does not seem to have changed substantially in the prein-
dustrial period. It did, however, fluctuate according to eco-
nomic conditions, as the figures from Colyton, Elversele,
and Amsterdam demonstrate. Note the disparity between
the Florentine data and that from northern Europe.
Place Time Age
Amiens (France) 1674–78 25
Amsterdam 1626–27 25
1676–77 27
Elversele (Flanders) 1608–49 25
1650–59 27
England 1575–1624 21
Titled nobility 1625–75 22
Village of Colyton 1560–1646 27
1647–1719 30
Florence 1351–1400 18
1401–50 17
1451–75 19
Source: Adapted from Carlo Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution,2d.
ed. (New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton, 1980), p. 154.TABLE 11.5Average Age of Women at First Marriage