Weddings&courtships+Facts+6-10




 * People married other people from like backgrounds
 * They chose mate's who were of the same social or occupational status.
 * Members of higher nobility were matched with people from other countries or regions; the person they were to marry was chosen for them and they had the right to veto the marriage, but usually that never happened.
 * The lower class got to choose their own mate's themselves; the parents were allowed to veto the marriage, but this also usually never happened.
 * Premarital sex was disapproved of
 * The was common for lower-class women to be pregnant at the time of their wedding
 * It was very unheard of for someone in a higher-class to become pregnant before marriage
 * Most marriages did not end until one of the partners died
 * Most marriages ened fast because the death rate was high
 * Men married in their twenties often died in their forties
 * Women often died in child birth only a few years after marriage
 * When a women is married, her husband becomes her legal guardian
 * The husband then legally owned all the property his wife brought to the marriage, as well as her wedding finery.
 * If the couple was divorced, then the bridal dowry was returned and husband kept everything else.
 * Many times unhappy marriages were endured, but some people chose to divorce
 * The men were usually the ones to leave and desert the woman
 * When the men would leave their wives the wive's were left in the position of not having a husband and also still married, therefore unable to remarry.
 * Since there was such poor communication it made it easy for the deserting husband to go somewhere else and remarry.