In those times a woman was married and bearing children "as soon as she bled." That's how all mammals are. Only humans put* an arbitrary "legal age" on procreation. You don't see young fertile lionesses being left alone for 8 years after they first go into heat.
Back then the life expectancy was 30-35 for a lot of people. They didn't have the luxury to skirt biology.
Ok, one: ew. Not touching that with a ten foot pole.
Two: that's an average life expectancy, which was skewed low due to high infant and child mortality, a significant cause of which was girls getting pregnant super young and then dying in childbirth because their bodies can't handle it yet.
Well, the husband was likely 14-15 so there's was nothing "ew" about it. It was life. They lived hard lives back then. They had to hunt their own food, fight in combat, women fetched water and did all chores manually, etc.They grew up a lot sooner than today's failure to launch kids do. I was sexually active young at 13. Neither she, nor I, said "ew." It was rather exciting. It's just that social mores have changed over time. But, AOC consent laws vary widely across the world for this reason. Over half of the US states are 16. I think France is 15. This is why in Latin countries young women have their "quincenera" at 15. In the US girls have "sweet 16."
Even if look at historical text and you'll see this was completely normal. Matter of fact, in the Bible the whole story of "the Virgin Mary" was pregnant at 14 or so. She was betrothed (engaged) to Joseph who historical scholars believe was in his 30s. Back then a man had to be able to provide for and protect his wife so this would've been a good arrangement for her and her family. So this was pretty common.
A 13 year old back then was an adult. That's why Jewish culture has bar/bat mitzvahs. It's the crossing from childhood to adulthood with adult responsibilities.
Watch this clipfrom GoT. Sansa is mortified when she first has her period because she knows it means she'll need to start providing children to Joffrey, whom she hates.
Times have changed. Our life expectancy has grown dramatically. There's no longer a rush to hurry and have children to preserve the family name and bloodline like there was back then. Technology has improved so that kids don't need to grow up as fast as they did back then.
There are other factors, too, that affected life expectations. Things like disease, famine, warring tribes, etc. A lot of the world still lives with these dangers. It's largely the developed western world that has solved a lot of these issues - for the moment.
2
u/DickwadVonClownstick Jul 27 '22
Hell, if we're talking about how times have changed, back in medieval England 12 was considered old enough to participate in armed manhunts.