>>94604527Pre-Christian medieval northwestern Europe frequently married their girls at 12-15 and men in their mid twenties.
This marriage pattern was also observed all over ancient Europe to differing degrees, notable examples being ancient Rome and ancient Israel.
It was often thought that girls matured much quicker than boys, which is also why many cultures had asymmetric minimum ages for marriage across the genders.
The trend reversed with rapid urbanization in the late-medieval period. I've read that people from the Netherlands area rapidly shifted from marrying in their teens to marrying in their late twenties in a matter of decades.
A possible explanation, I think, is the nuclear family unit, which was a change from the extended family unit that dominated Europe before Christianity.
The reason this is important is because great families used to arrange their men and daughters to form kinship and alliances, and in many pre-Christian cultures, as compensation for crimes or wars, but that sort of tradition faded away when everyone started modernizing by living by themselves.
This probably led to an equilibrium where men started marrying earlier and women started marrying later, because marriage changed from "familial duty" to "I saw this hot chick at the tavern, do you think she likes me?"
