uhm, actually the age of marriage basically exclusively depended on the real circumstances. in the roman empire, it was much lower, because rome was eternally at war, which consumed a whole lot of soldiers. that would not have been possible if women hadn’t had a lot of children, for which you’d have to start early.
the christian religion increased the minimum marriage age from 12 (!!) to 15 in the 3rd century CE (late roman empire), because rome stopped being a war-based country and there was simply no need for that many soldiers anymore.
also the same link explains that the average age of first childbirth was significantly lower for american settlers than for european peasants in the early modern age; again the reasoning is that the american settlers were a highly expansive population (roughly a doubling of population every 20 years!! in the time period 1650 - 1880).
Well Rome is difficult, what you said is more true for the Republican era, after that Rome didn’t need to “produce” soldiers they simply offered Roman citizenship and benefits. They were largely able to reintroduce recruit from Provences. The promise of good pay, war spoils, and land also helped.
As for marrigeable ages, your sources mostly pull from written documents. Roman society was aggressively patriarchal so daughters were often used as a way to broker alliances or an increase in social status. There is also the payment of dowry that incentives men to marry off their daughters as soon as possible
uhm, actually the age of marriage basically exclusively depended on the real circumstances. in the roman empire, it was much lower, because rome was eternally at war, which consumed a whole lot of soldiers. that would not have been possible if women hadn’t had a lot of children, for which you’d have to start early.
the christian religion increased the minimum marriage age from 12 (!!) to 15 in the 3rd century CE (late roman empire), because rome stopped being a war-based country and there was simply no need for that many soldiers anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age
also the same link explains that the average age of first childbirth was significantly lower for american settlers than for european peasants in the early modern age; again the reasoning is that the american settlers were a highly expansive population (roughly a doubling of population every 20 years!! in the time period 1650 - 1880).
Well Rome is difficult, what you said is more true for the Republican era, after that Rome didn’t need to “produce” soldiers they simply offered Roman citizenship and benefits. They were largely able to reintroduce recruit from Provences. The promise of good pay, war spoils, and land also helped.
As for marrigeable ages, your sources mostly pull from written documents. Roman society was aggressively patriarchal so daughters were often used as a way to broker alliances or an increase in social status. There is also the payment of dowry that incentives men to marry off their daughters as soon as possible