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falah
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The Age of Consent
Traditionally the age at which individuals could come together in a sexual union was something either for the family to decide or a matter of tribal custom. Probably in most cases this coincided with the onset of MENARCHE in girls...that is, between twelve and fourteen, but the boundaries remained fluid. In much of classical Greece this was true of both same- and opposite-sex relationships. In Republican Rome, marriage and the age of consent were initially private matters between the families involved...
...In the Islamic tradition following Muhammad, betrothal could take place earlier than PUBERTY, perhaps as early as seven, but the marriage was not supposed to be consummated until the girl menstruated and was of age. In medieval Europe, Gratian, the influential founder of Canon law in the twelfth century, accepted the traditional age of puberty for marriage (between 12 and 14) but he also said consent was "meaningful" if the children were older than seven. Some authorities said consent could take place earlier. Such a marriage would be permanent as long as neither party sought annulment before reaching puberty (12 for girls and 14 for boys) or if they had already consummated the marriage. Even if the husband had technically raped his wife before she reached puberty, the marriage was regarded as consummated. It was this policy which was carried over into English common law, and although consent was necessary, force and influence or persuasion seemed to have been permissible elements. Similarly Gratian's ideas about age became part of European civil law.
The age of consent in both English and continental law seemed to be particularly elastic when property was involved or family alliances were at stake. For example in 1564, a three year old named John was married to a two year old named Jane in the Bishop's Court in Chester, England. Though Shakespeare set his Romeo and Juliet in Verona, the fact that Juliet was thirteen probably reflects the reality in England. Her mother, who was twenty-six, calls her almost an old maid.
The American colonies followed the English tradition but the law could at best be called a guide. For example in Virginia in 1689, Mary Hathaway was only nine when she was married to William Williams... The only reliable data on age at marriage in England in the early modern period comes from Inquisitions Post Mortem which involved only those who died and left property. It appears that the more complete the records, the more likely it is to discover young marriages. Judges honored marriages based on mutual consent at age younger than seven, in spite of what Gratian had said, and there are recorded marriages of two and three year olds. The seventeenth-century lawyer Henry Swinburne distinguished between the marriages of those under seven and those between seven and puberty. He wrote that those under seven who had said their vows had to ratify it afterwards by giving kisses and embraces, by lying together, by exchanging gifts or tokens, or by calling each other husband or wife. A contemporary, Philip Stubbes, wrote that in sixteenth-century East Anglia, infants still in swaddling clothes were married. The most influential legal text of the seventeenth century in England, that of Sir Edward Coke, made it clear that the marriage of girls under twelve was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was nine...
...in the parish of Middlesex County, Virginia, there is a record of fourteen-year-old Sarah Halfhide marrying twenty-one-year-old Richard Perrot. Only in the last sentence of the register does it indicate that she was a widow....
...Of the ninety-eight girls on the ten-year register, three probably married at age eight, one at twelve, one at thirteen, and two at fourteen...Natalie Davis, whose book The Return of Martin Guerre became a movie, made her heroine, Bertrande, much older than the nine-to ten-year old girl she was when she married her missing husband.
...In the nineteenth century France issued the Napoleonic Code and many other countries, following France's example, began revising their laws. The Napoleonic Code, however, had not changed the age of consent, which remained at thirteen. When historian Magnus Hirschfeld surveyed the age of consent of some fifty countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) at the beginning of the twentieth century, the age of consent was twelve in fifteen countries, thirteen in seven, fourteen in five, fifteen in four, and sixteen in five. In the remaining countries it remained unclear...
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html
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