The Daily Dispatch: July 12, 1862., [Electronic resource]

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Early marriages.

--The returns for 1800 show, as usual, an increasing number of early marriages. In 1841, of the men who married in England, only 4.38 per cent. were under 21; in 1860 the proportion had risen to 6.35. Of the women married, the proportion under age in 1841 was only 13.29 per cent; in 1860 it was 19.35. Every year, above 2,000 girls are married under 18, when neither mind nor body has attained maturity above 30,000 are married under 21. Within the last twenty years the number of persons who marry under age has doubled, though marriages have not increased much more than 40 per cent. The increase of early marriages has been most rapid in the prosperous ten years 1851.'60. In Bedfordshire. Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, where the straw-plait and lace manufactures place so many girls in a condition of some independence, a fourth of those who marry, marry under age. The proportion is as high in Staffordshire, the West Riding and Durham. It is low in the metropolis, in the southwestern counties, and in Wales.--London Times.