This is a list of child brides , women of historical significance who married under 18 years of age. From A. During the Holy Roman Empire 9th—19th centuries , age of majority was 21 years old and minimum marriageable age was 12 years for females and 14 years for males.
There were some fathers who arranged marriages for a son or a daughter before he or she reached the age of maturity. Consummation would not take place until the age of maturity. Roman Catholic canon law defines a marriage as consummated when the "spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.
In England, the Marriage Act required a marriage to be covered by a license requiring parental consent for those under 21 or the publication of banns which parents of those under 21 could forbid. The Church of England dictated that both the bride and groom must be at least 21 years of age to marry without the consent of their families; in the certificates, the most common age for the brides is 22 years.
For the grooms 24 years was the most common age, with average ages of 24 years for the brides and 27 for the grooms. In England, the minimum marriageable age was raised to 16 in Before then, the minimum marriageable age was 12 for females and 14 for males. In , the age of majority was lowered to 18 years old. The age of majority is 18 years old since C. E in the Roman Catholic Church.
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