Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1883 — Early Marriages. [ARTICLE]

Early Marriages.

English Paper. Not only in the days of good Queen Bess and earlier, but very much later in our history,early marriages were allowed. To take an instance in the Georgian period, this entry is in “The Chronological Diary” appended to the Historical Register, VoL VL, for the year 1721, June 8: “Charles Powel, of Carmtithen, Esq., of about 11 Tears of Age, marry’d to a Daughter of Sir Thomas Powel,of Broadway, Bart, deceased, aged about 14.” The young lady’s only brother had died on March 21, preceding. Often did a guardian having control of a wealthy ward find it convenient not to delay the promotion of a marriage of the ward with one of his own kith and kin, though not always by any means was it considered necessary that there should exist between the couple the sentiments which induced Dickens’ ‘ young gentleman not 8 years old to run away with a fine young woman of 7.’’ * * * I may mention a similar instance which occurred nearly 130 years later than the marriage to -#hich H. refere in) a family which my mother now represents—viz.: the Shaws, of Ballytweedy, County Antrim. Henry Shaw (son of John Shaw,of Ballvtweedy, and grandson of Oapt Shaw, High Sheriff for County Antrim, 1693, who was attainted by King James’ Parliament) was married in the year 1721 to his cousin Mary (only child of Patrick Shaw, of Brittas, County Antrim) when neither of them was yet 16 years old;” and the old document from which l am quoting goes on to say that the father of this equally precocious bridegroom "continued to manage for the young couple, and had not long survived their coming of age.” Their eldest child was bom in 1723. Henry Shaw died in 1775, a year after the birth of his great-grandson, Thomas Potter, of Mount Potter, County Down. • * * An instance of early marriage even more curious than that mentioned by H. is the marriage of Elizabeth,daughter of Thomas, Lord Clifford, of Skipton Castle, in the fifteenth century, to Sir Robert Plupapton, of Plumpton Castle, the bride was 6 years of age and the bridegroom not much more. The« husband died three years after marriage, and the “widow** was united to hie brother William when she had gained the age of 12 years. Dodsworth preserved lor us the

document from which the abovAinforfifttion is given in. Whittaker’s History of Craven.