On Medieval Marriage

I'm reading a piece of historical fiction, at the moment, focused on the life of farmers in the Münster of the Reformation Era. (That's worth its own, longer article, because the story is absolutely wild.)

The thing that seems timely to me, so far, was the difficulty with which men were able to marry. We tend to think of marriage as something women dream of and men suffer through, but all historical counts (and modern dynamics) suggest the precise opposite. Our view of marriage is heavily skewed by the short postwar era in which marriage rates exploded along with personal wealth, as the automobile allowed people the opportunity to move further away from their workplace and afford a home (and a wife). In the Americana Era, weddings were reduced to extravagant personal parties, involving lots of shopping and fun, with the associated divorce frequently arriving soon thereafter.

In the medieval age, men typically worked, saved, studied, trained, and prepared until they were at least mid-20s to mid-30s, before they were allowed to marry. His father, her father, and their masters and lords had to agree, as your marriage effected their tax income, their future laborers, and determined who inherited the right to work, inhabit, or control property and licenses. In addition, he would have to afford the merchet (marriage) or amobr (virginity-taking) tax to the lord, as well as providing for things like dowries and a home.

About 15-20% of women never married. The modern marriage rates match the medieval and Victorian ones. Rather than being some historical aberration, this is the historical norm. And, like in those days passed, marriage skews toward the upper-middle and upper classes. Marriage is primarily focused on attaining, preserving, maintaining, and passing on property rights and wealth. Then and now. And this preservation of property and wealth is why divorce was uncommon, and still should be.

What modern men haven't yet figured out, is how to structure society so that most women are again willing (or coerced) into going along with their marriage plans. Without rampant divorce. This is the next societal sexual evolution, that we can expect, but maybe it will never arrive and humans will simply go extinct. Women are not, and never have been, the catalyst to turn such a situation around. They are often better off without marriage, so long as enough other women marry. The tragedy of the marital commons, so to say.