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by telchar 1372 days ago
Among the aristocracy, sure. Maybe the near-aristocracy. What about the other 99% of historical humans? Do you have any sources that the average peasant was marrying primarily for advantage? What advantage is there even to gain in a marriage between two peasants?
2 comments

I'd imagine the effect is even more pronounced, where a poor farmer gladly weds his daughter for a goat.
For the 99%, marriage was an arrangement - the man earns, the woman supports the household and both make babies to keep the family moving on. A lot of the arrangements were done by parents, even in poor families. This was all blessed by the church/temple.
Even that is a relatively modern arrangement. More typical was man does the day-to-day farming, woman raises children and produces textiles for the family's use, all hands on deck for key farming events like harvests. Most peasants earned very little hard currency; generally only a bit from surplus food or textiles when their children were the old enough to produce more than they consumed.