The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(October 2013) |
This is a list of child brides, females of historical significance who married under 18 years of age.
From 380 A.D. to 1983 A.D., the age of majority was 21 years old in the Roman Catholic Church, which was adopted into canon law from Roman law. From 380 A.D. to 1971 A.D. the minimum marriageable age was 12 years for females and 14 years for males in the Roman Catholic Church, which was adopted into canon law from Roman law.
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." [6]
In England, the Marriage Act 1753 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. [7] While European noblewomen often married early, they were a small minority of the population, [8] and the marriage certificates from Canterbury show that, in England, even among nobility it was very rare to marry women off at very early ages. [7]
In England, the minimum marriageable age was raised to 16 in 1929. Before then, the minimum marriageable age was 12 for females and 14 for males. In 1971, the age of majority was lowered to 18 years old.
The age of majority is 18 years old since 1983 C.E. and the minimum marriageable age is 14 years old for females and 16 years old for males since in 1917 C.E in the Roman Catholic Church.
For the latter half of the 19th century, between 13 and 18% of native-born white female first marriages in the United States were of girls under the age of 18. [24]
The House of Wittelsbach is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spouse, or any children born of the marriage. The concept is most prevalent in German-speaking territories and countries most influenced by the customs of the German-speaking realms.
Francis I of the Two Sicilies was King of the Two Sicilies from 1825 to 1830 and regent of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1806 to 1814.
Eleanor of Austria, also called Eleanor of Castile, was born an Archduchess of Austria and Infanta of Castile from the House of Habsburg, and subsequently became Queen consort of Portugal (1518–1521) and of France (1530–1547). She also held the Duchy of Touraine (1547–1558) in dower. She is called "Leonor" in Spanish and Portuguese and "Éléonore" or "Aliénor" in French.
Fils de France was the style and rank held by the sons of the kings and dauphins of France. A daughter was known as a fille de France.
Elisabeth of France, also known as Isabella or Elisabeth of Bourbon was Queen of Spain from 1621 to her death and Queen of Portugal from 1621 to 1640, as the first spouse of King Philip IV & III. She served as regent of Spain during the Catalan Revolt in 1640–42 and 1643–44. As the mother of the Queen of France Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV, she's the great-grandmother of the Duke of Anjou, who became king of Spain as Philip V. Through her daughter, Elisabeth is the progenitor of the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon, which still rules over Spain to this day, as all future kings of Spain after the War of Spanish Succession descend from her. She's also the ancestor of the current Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Henri, through both the Bourbon-Parma collateral branch of the Spanish royal family and the main branch of Bourbon dynasty, as he is a descendant of the last Duke of Parma, Robert I, and his mother Louise of Artois, the granddaughter of Charles X of France, through Robert's son Felix.
Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden was heir apparent of the Margraviate of Baden.
DonaFrancisca was a princess of the Empire of Brazil, who became Princess of Joinville upon marrying François d’Orléans, son of the French king Louis Philippe I. The couple had three children. Through their oldest daughter, Francisca and François are the ancestors of Jean, Count of Paris, the present Orléanist pretender to the French throne.
Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, later Princess Henry of Prussia, was the third child and third daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her paternal grandparents were Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Elisabeth of Prussia. She was the wife of Prince Henry of Prussia, a younger brother of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and her first cousin. The SS Prinzessin Irene, a liner of the North German Lloyd was named after her.
Maria Isabella of Spain was Queen of the Two Sicilies from 4 January 1825 until 8 November 1830 as the wife of Francis I of the Two Sicilies.
Adelaide of Austria was Queen of Sardinia by marriage to Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia, future King of Italy, from 1849 until 1855 when she died as a result of gastroenteritis. She was the mother of Umberto I of Italy.
John Henry of Luxembourg, a member of the House of Luxembourg, was Count of Tyrol from 1335 to 1341 and Margrave of Moravia from 1349 until his death.
Christine Marie of France was Duchess of Savoy from 26 July 1630 to 7 October 1637 as the consort of Duke Victor Amadeus I. She was the daughter of Henry IV of France and sister of Louis XIII. Following her husband's death in 1637, she acted as regent of Savoy between 1637 and 1648.
Anne Marie d'Orléans was Queen of Sardinia by marriage to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. She served as regent of Savoy during the absence of her spouse in 1686 and during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Maria Theresa of Savoy was a French princess by marriage to Charles Philippe, Count of Artois. Her husband was the grandson of Louis XV and younger brother of Louis XVI. Nineteen years after Maria Theresa’s death, her spouse assumed the throne of France as King Charles X. Her son Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, married Marie Antoinette’s daughter Marie-Thérèse Charlotte.
The Capetian House of Anjou, or House of Anjou-Sicily, or House of Anjou-Naples was a royal house and cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three separate royal houses referred to as Angevin, meaning "from Anjou" in France. Founded by Charles I of Anjou, the youngest son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century. The War of the Sicilian Vespers later forced him out of the island of Sicily, leaving him with the southern half of the Italian Peninsula, known as the Kingdom of Naples. The house and its various branches would go on to influence much of the history of Southern and Central Europe during the Middle Ages until it became extinct in 1435.
Louis XIV (1638–1715), the Bourbon monarch of the Kingdom of France, was the son of King Louis XIII of France and Queen Anne.
Queen Victoria, the British monarch from 1837 to 1901, and Prince Albert had 9 children, 42 grandchildren, and 87 great-grandchildren. Victoria was called the "grandmother of Europe".
Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duchess of Berry was an Italian princess of the House of Bourbon who married into the French royal family, and was the mother of Henri, Count of Chambord. She led an unsuccessful rebellion against King Louis-Philippe I to install her son on the French throne.