THE AGE OF MARRIAGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LII, Issue 5156, 1 June 1891, Page 3

THE AGE OF MARRIAGE.

! A great outcry is being mado m England I against ohild marriage m India, and legislation has recently beon adopted raising the ago of legal marriago, — much npainst tho popular . will m India. The Speaker points out that , among our own ancestors " girla were oom- | tuoaly married when they were twolve yoare 1 old," and thiit tlio ogo of marrioge ban been only slowly and gradually raised during the l»Bt ten centuries. (Jh.iucer mado hia " Wife of Bath" say that ohe was first married at tho ago of twelve. Shakespeare's Juliet is not quite fourloen. It may be said that Juliet U Italian and not English ; but Shakespeare wai , writing for an English audienc« and " would hardly hnvo ventured on statements that ' would eeon unnaturul and unusual to every 1 spectator of the drama." Such a statement, however, would not. seem unnatural m hia day. Tho mother of Henry VII was under 1 fourteen when the future king was born, and > his daughter wus married to James IV of Scotland before sho was fourteen. A century i later, Mary of Modena was only fourteen when she married Jamos It. Burly marriages ' wore not confined to the female Bex. I 1 dward 111 waß married at Ifi ; hia son Lionel afc 14 ; • Henry IV at 13 j Warren Hastings' father at > 15 ; the firet Earl of Shafteßburj at 18 ; the 1 second at 17. Those examples, taken almost at random from litorature and tho r peerugo, are Buffioient to prove the ref markabio change which has taken place m the foelingß and habits of the people of this country during tho last fow centuries. Marri- > ages which seemed usual m Chaucer's and Shakespeare's time, and wore not unusual two conturioß ago, would bo now vegaHed as impossible.