This is a list of child brides, females of historical significance who married under 18 years of age, which is the general
marriageable age and
age of majority in most countries in the 21st century.[citation needed]
Ruqaiya Sultan Begum married
Akbar, her first paternal cousin, at the time of his first appointment, at the age of nine, in 1551. Akbar's marriage with Ruqaiya was solemnised near
Jalandhar, Punjab, when both of them were 14 years old.
Rukhmabai (age 11) was married in India to Dadaji Bhikaji (age 19),[1] a cousin of her stepfather, in about 1875. After a lengthy court battle, the marriage was dissolved by an order from
Queen Victoria and the publicity helped influence the passage of the
Age of Consent Act, 1891, which increased age of consent for girls in India, married or unmarried, from 10 to 12.[2]
Janakiammal Iyengar (age 10) was married to the Indian mathematician
Srinivasa Ramanujan[3] in 1909.
Ushabati Ghosh (age 11) was married to the Indian physicist
Satyendra Nath Bose (aged 20)[4] in 1914. Bose, not keen on marriage so early in life and while still attending college, only did so at his mother's insistence.[5] They had nine children, two of whom died in early childhood.
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.
Judith of Flanders (aged about 12/13) was married to
Æthelwulf, King of Wessex (aged about 61), in October 856. After Æthelwulf's death in January 858, Judith (now about 14/15) was remarried later that year to the new king, her stepson
Æthelbald. Her second husband died in 860, and she was married to
Baldwin I, Margrave of Flanders, in either 861 or 862, when she was around 17–19 years old.
Cecile of France (aged 8/9) was married to
Tancred, Prince of Galilee (aged 30/31), in late 1106. As he was dying in 1112, Tancred made
Pons, Count of Tripoli, promise to marry her; Pons and Cecile were married later that year, when she was 14/15 and he was 13/14.
Margaret of France (aged 13/14) was married to
Henry the Young King (aged 17) in 1172. They had been betrothed since 1160, when Margaret was about 2 and Henry was 5.
Agnes of France was betrothed at age 8 and is reported to have been 9-years-old when she married
Alexios II Komnenos (aged 10) in 1180. She was widowed in 1183 at the age of 12, and was then married to
Andronicus Comnenus (aged 65); he died two years later.
Isabella of Hainault (aged 10) married
Philip II of France (aged 14) in 1180. She had previously been betrothed to
Henry, future Count of Champagne, when he was 5 and she was only 1.
Berengaria of Castile married
Conrad II, Duke of Swabia (aged 13/14), in 1187, when she was about 8-years-old. The marriage was never consummated due to her young age. After Conrad's death in 1196, Berengaria married her first cousin once removed
Alfonso IX of León (aged 25/26) in 1197, when she was about 17- or 18-years-old. The marriage was eventually annulled by the Pope in 1204 on the grounds of
consanguinity.
Isabella of Aragon (aged 13/14) was married to the future
Philip III of France (aged 17) in May 1262. They had been betrothed since May 1258, when she was 9/10 and he was 13.
Joan of Kent (aged 12) secretly married
Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent (aged 26), in 1340. Holland went to war overseas, and her family arranged for the 13-year-old Joan to marry
William Montagu (aged 12) in either late 1340 or early 1341. When Holland returned, the marriage was revealed, and Holland petitioned the Pope to have Holland's wife returned to him. Following the ruling in Holland's favor in 1349,
Pope Clement VI annulled the marriage to Montagu and ordered Joan and Holland to be married in the Church.
Anna von Schweidnitz (aged 14) was married to
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (aged 37), in 1353. She had originally been betrothed at age 11 to Charles's newborn son and heir, Wencelaus, but after the death of both Wenceslaus and his mother, Charles asked to marry Anna himself.
Blanche I of Navarre (aged 14) was married by proxy to
Martin I of Sicily (aged about 28) in May 1402. An in-person ceremony was later performed in December of that year.
Isabella of Valois (aged 6) was married to
Richard II of England (aged 29) in October 1396, a little over a week before her seventh birthday. The marriage was never consummated. After Richard's death, Isabella married her cousin
Charles, Duke of Orléans (aged 11), in June 1406, when she was 16.
Margaret Beaufort, (age 7; approximately) was married to
John de la Pole (age 7) in 1450 by the arrangement John's father.[9] The marriage was annulled in 1453.[10] She was then married again at age 12 to
Edmund Tudor, age 25.
Caterina Sforza was betrothed at age 10 to
Girolamo Riario (aged 29/30) in 1473. Some sources state that they married in that year, but that the marriage was not consummated until 1477, when Caterina turned 14, the legal age at the time.
Anne of Brittany (aged 13) was married by proxy to
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (aged 31), in 1490. After
Charles VIII of France (aged 21) stormed the city where she was staying, she was married to him in 1491, at the age of 14; her marriage to Maximilian was annulled the following year.
Christina of Denmark (aged 11) was married by proxy to
Francis II, Duke of Milan (aged 38), in September 1533. They were married in person in May 1534, when she was 12 and he was 39. After her first husband's death in 1535, she was considered as a possible fourth wife for
Henry VIII, who at the time was 46, while she was only 16. However, the match was opposed by both Christina and her aunt
Mary of Hungary, and so it never materialized. Christina eventually married
Francis, Duke of Bar (aged 23), in July 1541, when she was 19.
Lady Katherine Grey (aged 12), younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, was married to
Henry, Lord Herbert, in 1553. Henry was at most 15-years-old. The marriage was annulled in 1554.
Mary, Queen of Scots (aged 15/16), was married to
Francis, Dauphin of France (aged 13/14), in 1558. The pair had been betrothed since Mary was five and Francis was three. Mary had originally been betrothed when she was six months old to the future
Edward VI of England, whom she was supposed to marry at the age of ten.
Lucrezia de' Medici (aged 12) was married to
Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Modena (aged 24), in 1558. As Alfonso was fighting in France at the time, she did not move to his home in Ferrara until two years later. She died at the age of 16, and is believed to have been poisoned by her husband.
Margherita Farnese (aged 13) was married to
Vincenzo Gonzaga (aged 18), the future Duke of Mantua, in March 1581. The marriage was annulled in May 1583 on grounds of non-consummation, Vincenzo claiming Margherita had been unable to do so due to a deformity[13] and Margherita accusing Vincenzo of impotence.
Mary, Princess Royal (aged 9), married the future
William II, Prince of Orange (aged 15), in 1641. The marriage was reported to not have been consummated for a number of years due to the bride's age.
Lady Charlotte Fitzroy (aged 13) was married to
Sir Edward Lee (aged 14) in 1677. They had been betrothed since 1674, before Charlotte's tenth birthday.
Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain (aged 10) was married to
José, Prince of Brazil (aged 14), in January 1729. She had previously been engaged at the age of 3 to her first cousin the 10-year-old
Louis XV of France. She was sent to France, where she remained until the age of 7, when Louis reached his majority and rejected her as a bride.
Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst (later known as
Catherine the Great) was 16-years-old when she married her 17-year-old second cousin Peter of Holstein-Gottorp (later
Peter III of Russia) in 1745.
Elizabeth Medora Leigh was, as a young teenager, seduced by her brother-in-law, Henry Trevanion, by whom she fell pregnant twice. After the second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, she eloped with him to France in 1831, at age 16/17.
Isabella II of Spain (aged 16) was married to her double first cousin
Francis, Duke of Cádiz (aged 24), in October 1846. The ceremony was held on Isabella's 16th birthday, and was a double wedding with Isabella's younger sister, Infanta Luisa Fernanda, marrying the Duke of Montpensier.
Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain (aged 14) was married to her first cousin once removed
Antoine, Duke of Montpensier (aged 22), in October 1846. The ceremony was a double wedding with her elder sister, Isabella II of Spain, marrying the Duke of Cádiz.
Nujood Ali (aged 9) married Faez Ali Thamer (aged in his 30s) in 2008. She secured a
divorce aged 10 and is an activist against child marriage in
Yemen.[20][21]
Fanny Alger (aged 16), who was married to Smith sometime during 1833–1835.[23]
Sarah Ann Whitney (aged 17), who was married with her parents' consent to Smith in July 1842. Nine months after this, she was married to
Joseph C. Kingsbury.
Helen Mar Kimball (aged 14), who was
sealed in marriage to Joseph Smith (aged 37) in May 1843. Following Smith's death when she was 16, Kimball married Horace Whitney (aged 22) "for time", in February 1846. Whitney was a brother of another of Smith's wives.
Letitia Tyler (aged 17), daughter of U.S. President
John Tyler, married James A. Semple in February 1839.
Harriet Howe (aged 15/16) married
Henry Wilson (aged 28) in October 1840. Wilson later served as Vice President of the United States during the
Grant administration.
Jill St. John (aged 16) married Neil Dubin (aged 22) in May 1957.
Myra Brown (aged 13) married
Jerry Lee Lewis (aged 22) on December 12, 1957. The marriage was repeated June 4, 1958 because his previous divorce wasn't finalized.
Lana Wood (aged 16) married Jack Wrather Jr. (aged 18) in December 1962.
Sherry Johnson (aged 11) was compelled by her mother to marry Alfonsa Tolbert (a deacon in their church and the man who had raped and impregnated Sherry) in March 1971.
Rena Chynoweth (aged 16) was married to
Ervil LeBaron (aged about 49) circa 1974. Chynoweth was among at least thirteen plural wives LeBaron married, many of whom were underage at the time of their marriages.
^
abLaslett, Peter. 1965. The World We Have Lost. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p 82
^Coontz, Stephanie. 2005. Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage. New York, New York: Viking Press, Penguin Group Inc. p 125-129.