MAP Forum

Title says it all. Any user here can feel free to share any factual source showing examples of intergenerational intimacy being accepted in a specific culture/subculture or time period. I would also encourage to post here positive historical examples of youth-adult couples, so long as you back it up by linking it to a factual source. This thread will serve for archival purposes, specifically to document parts of MAP history.

I'll begin:

When “well-to-do farmer B. K. Singh married the sixteen-year old daughter of one of his tenants in 1918 one headline read, ‘Hindu Weds White Girl by Stealing Away to Arizona.’ The article speculated that since Imperial County would not issue a license for a Punjabi and a white woman, it was doubtful that the clerk in Yuma acted legally.”

https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/echoes- ... /home-life

Butler, who was of Irish origin, was an indentured servant to Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore. At around 16 years of age she announced her intention to marry a man referred to only as "Negro Charles". A 1664 Maryland law outlined the legal status of a free woman who voluntarily married an enslaved man: she would serve the master of her husband until his death, and any offspring of their union would be born into slavery. Despite this, Butler was determined to be wed. The thought of a white woman becoming enslaved distressed Lord Baltimore, and he warned against the union for that reason.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Butler

Relevant articles.

https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/Research:_ ... in_History

https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/Research:_ ... ationships

These will be collapsed into a single compendium per country w various historical eras when there is enough material and time/someone willing to do it.

Minor Attraction in Biblical times:

The oldest source on Mary's age at the time of marriage is probably the Protoevangelium of James. It gives her age as 12.

The Protoevangelium is usually dated to the second century, as are many of the Christian texts that became part of the canonical Bible. However, while some early Christians did consider the text to be canonical, it was eventually classed apocryphal by the later church. (However, it should be noted that premodern Christians did not consider apocryphal texts to be without evidential weight. Rather they considered them to be of limited weight).

The relevant passage in the Protoevangelium is:https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0847.htm

"And her parents went down marvelling, and praising the Lord God, because the child had not turned back. And Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an angel. And when she was twelve years old there was held a council of the priests, saying: "Behold, Mary has reached the age of twelve years in the temple of the Lord. What then shall we do with her, lest perchance she defile the sanctuary of the Lord? "And they said to the high priest: You stand by the altar of the Lord; go in, and pray concerning her; and whatever the Lord shall manifest unto you, that also will we do. And the high priest went in, taking the robe with the twelve bells into the holy of holies; and he prayed concerning her. And behold an angel of the Lord stood by him, saying unto him: Zacharias, Zacharias, go out and assemble the widowers of the people, and let them bring each his rod; and to whomsoever the Lord shall show a sign, his wife shall she be. And the heralds went out through all the circuit of Judæa, and the trumpet of the Lord sounded, and all ran."

This would more or less coincide with the average age of marriage in pre-modern Levant, which was 12-14 during Biblical times: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dai ... the-bible/

(3) Marriageable Age. At the time of their marriage, Mary was probably a teenager—and Joseph not much older. According to rabbinic texts, parents were encouraged to engage their girls around age 12, about the time of puberty, and marry them a year later. Fiensy supports this claim with archaeological evidence; first-century inscriptions that list women’s age-at-marriage generally indicate ages 12–17, with the majority at age 13.

Armar Trooper said that girls often used to get married early we might say premature, while men married late. In context, he says that in general Jews marry prematurely to achieve maximum fertility which is the rule & older couples (40, 50, 70yr) with older age marriages are also possible based on romance by choice to marry. Choice isn't a rule. I attached an image related to it for further context. Source :Amram Tropper, “Children and Childhood in Light of the Demographics of the Jewish Family in Late Antiquity,”