[Samuel_Michon]

Citation needed. Also, in the Middle Ages, weddings were seen as business arrangements between families. Such arrangements could be made revolving very young children. Matilda was betrothed to Henry V when she was an infant and the two married when she was 12, so clearly, society didn’t feel one had to be 18 to marry.

[gngeal]

Citation needed.

Of course, here you are:

"Historians have demonstrated that peasants married at significantly later ages than aristocrats. Whereas members of the nobility usually married between age 14 and age 20, peasants probably married in their mid- to late twenties. It is likely that new families could not form until the parents of the potential couple were either dead or old enough to retire, so that they could turn over their land and dwelling to the new couple." [Linda Mitchell, Family Life in the Middle Ages, Greenwood 2007, p. 40]

"Reliable statistics are rare for the Middle Ages, but the evidence suggests that the typical age of marriage among the peasantry was the late twenties for men, the early twenties for women; similar ages probably applied for the urban laboring classes. The ages decline, particularly for women, further up the social scale. Among prosperous urban families, the marriage age for women was typically the late teens; the age varied widely for men. In the aristocracy, ages in the mid-teens for women and early twenties for men seem to have been common." [Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Daily Life in Medieval Europe, Greenwood 1999, p. 27]

[The following text is concerned with the very beginning of Early Modern period-post Late Middle Ages] "When individual ages are looked at, however, we do find very occasional marriages in the early teens. One girl gave her age as thirteen, none as fourteen, four as fifteen, twelve as sixteen, but all the rest of the brides in the sample, 990 of them, were seventeen or over, and more than four out of five had reached the age of twenty. Only ten of the men were younger than this. The commonest age for women was twenty-two, for men twenty-four; the median - the age below which as many got married as above it - was some 22.75 for women, 25.5 for men." [Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: Further Explored, Routledge 2001, p. 83]

[Samuel_Michon]

Thanks for the citation, but it doesn’t actually address my earlier statement. Nowhere in the text is it mentioned that was it believed that folk under 18 were not ready for marriage. The reason peasants got married in their twenties was a practical one, mostly financial. Ethics and mores are mentioned nowhere, on the contrary: the text mentions teen marriages did occur.

[gngeal]

I'd say that "somehow not ready for marriage" DOES include material reasons. If most marriages didn't happen early because of this, that still makes early marriages quite unusual for most contemporary people. That was the point I was trying to make. (And I do have the experience that people regularly scoff at things that defy social norms and customs, and I have no reason to believe that people in the Middle Ages were any different.)

[milesskorpen]

Weddings between nobles would be the exception, not the norm — despite the focus on history books.

[Torgo]

I am not sure that marriages of royalty are representative, their marriages had entire countries, delicate alliances, and survival of families on the line. That probably drives extreme decision-making.

[tome]

I got a bit confused there until I realised that England need not be the only kingdom that had a Henry V!

[Samuel_Michon]

No, your first instinct was right. I was talking about King Henry V and his wife, Matilda of England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_of_England

[gngeal]

Except that the Henry V in question was a German guy. :) "The Holy Roman Empire", despite its name, was initially a Frankish and then a purely German institution, comprising a lot of the lands of Central Europe (plus a bit of Western Europe, for as while).

[tome]

But your link says she "was the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England" and "married Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor"!

[Samuel_Michon]

Ah yes, I see your point now. A couple of centuries after the first Henry V, there’s another Henry V, born in England.

Of course, there are plenty of kings and child brides to choose from. How about Richard II of England, who married Isabella of Valois when she was 6 years old?