Does "then-gf" mean current wife or ex-gf? i.e. did it work?

The former. Married 13 years next month.

Honestly from her vantage point it was going to "work" either way: if I'd said no she was moving on. She wasn't waiting around for me to get around to it. (Subsequent history has borne all this out: she's impulsive and impatient, I'm cautious and deliberate.)

And man, for the record, *that* is one hell of a thing to be hit with, just because for (I assume) the vast majority of guys (hetero guys at least) you don't expect to be on that end of the question. A woman might be surprised that she gets a particular proposal from a particular guy at a particular time, but chances are she's thought about being proposed to.

I was literally speechless for about 5 solid minutes before saying yes. :)

I was literally speechless for about 5 solid minutes before saying yes. :)

You're a lucky man that you survived that 5 minutes with all your appendages still attached ;-)

I'd bet on the latter. I think we're seeing the beginning of the death throes of the welfare state, and the comfy western lifestyle that permits adolescence until 30, and retirement at 55.

God I hope not. I was hoping we could continually keep pushing back the limit on adolesence to the rough formula of MY AGE + 2 YEARS for the rest of time.

If there's one thing I've learned from studying history it's that projecting forward is pretty much impossible, especially when it comes to social trends like work, marriage, and family where we can barely get a consensus on how to describe them in the present. The most precise guess I'd make is that 200 years from now "the family" will be quite different from what it is now, and even more different than what it was 200 years ago.

joe,

if NEITHER one of you wants kids then it doesn't matter when you get married. i mean, if you want to have kids with a spouse instead of a partner.

snapper

we got married when i was 19 and he was 23 and we had officially dated for 2 months. of course, i'd known him very well my whole life because he's my brother's best friend so it wasn't one of those stupid kim kardashian things. but even at 19, i had already figured out that i personally MUCH prefer comfort to excitement and i already knew that i could talk to him and he would listen and at least TRY to understand and i already knew that he wanted kids and i already knew that no matter HOW mad i could get at him i would always like him. i figured we would work things out - and we sure nuff did need to work out a LOT of things, but we did. it is what relationships are all about.

i got NO regrets. i made the right decision and when i look around at all the trash my gf and cousins wasting their time with, i'm even happier. i can't understand having a baby with a male who is, to be nice about it, nothing but trouble, stupid and IN trouble - you think the kid can't be nothin like him like, WHY??? anyway, i am not interested in having sex with other people and i seriously doubt husby-doo is either. (brad ausmus is a FANTASY - just like youse guys go check out pr0n, does not mean you are out there runnin with hos)

You're a lucky man that you survived that 5 minutes with all your appendages still attached ;-)

To this day she insists it was actually 15 minutes. But history has also borne out that she has no sense of time. :)

You're all overlooking the blindingly obvious here. Even Lisa, which surprises me.
That is, this woman is a Cardinals fan and so should in no way be encouraged to procreate.

Lisa is going to be a Cardinals fan once the Astros leave the NL. TLR was the obstacle but not any longer.

"Baseball, gentlemen. Baseball!"

From the article:

I watched Game 7 with Scott, his family, my mom and a few friends at the Dubliner, an Irish pub in downtown St. Louis.

I'd say that's another point in her favor.

Lisa is going to be a Cardinals fan once the Astros leave the NL. TLR was the obstacle but not any longer.

Sigh. And I always liked her.

well, i've been with my g.f. for about 5 yrs now. we moved to L.A. together after doing a long distance thing. early on, i asked her to marry me twice, and she kind of put it on hold. since then, she's been hinting around that we can go ahead with it. i've decided we can wait. her solution to that quandary is pretty typical of her. she's the type who will do things on her own initiative, so she just calls me her husband when its convenient for her.

i'm all for lisa doing the cardinals thing, but i'll believe it when i see it.

early on, i asked her to marry me twice, and she kind of put it on hold.

According to the logic in this thread, you apparently were supposed to dump her at that point.

My longest "pre-Mrs. Snapper" relationship was about 3 years, and I believed that we were close to engagement before it went asses over tea-cups. In retrospect, dodged a HUGE bullet.

She did? Heh.

snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: November 07, 2011 at 12:47 PM (#3987963)

Historically speaking average age of marriage is tied to economics. As with politics and religion, I'm far more familiar with 17th century relationships and marriage than those of the present day, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were similarities. In England the aristocracy and rural labourers married quite young, but the fast-growing demographics of the urban poor and artisans married quite late (averages around mid to late 20s, which is VERY late when you consider the average lifespan).

From my readings, long-term averages in the West (over centuries and millennia) tend to be ~24 for men, and ~20 for women. The four year age gap is also very stable. Even as average ages move up and down, women tend to marry men ~3-5 years older than they are.

- females didn't routinely get married until age 20 WHERE? they were capable of reproduction for 8 YEARS before marriage when females were expected to not have pre-marital sex and were not married off??? i have a very VERY hard time believing that with all the large families and the vast majority of people living in poverty that daughters were kept with the family until age 20.

and no i do NOT believe none of that nonsense about how BITGOD females didn't go through puberty until 17 or something. they went through puberty at 13 in the Bible. Even the Jews give the females the bar mittvah at age 13 and why would they do that if they were not officially an adult - and that has been going on since, what, 5800 years ago?

i got a VERY hard time believing this. here in texas before WW2 females got married by 18, pretty much. before most people went to HS, females got married even younger than that. 20 was an old maid. and i mean White and Mexican-American and American Indian females, too, not just us. too many kids born to too many females who were under 17 at the time. you go to old cemetaries, you see a whole LOT of mother/baby graves of 13-17 year old females died from pregnancy/childbirth.

lots and LOTS of people were common law married here in texas, especially people who lived away from any large city where there was no preacher/traveling preacher, so at least here, the marriage and birth stats are not reliable from the 1700s and 1800s. Probably the first half of the 1900s, too.

and i would bet there was an age gap of a LOT more than 3 years between husband and wife too. that is not real too much. i won't use my own family as an example because i know i am gonna hear about Slave Culture, but i will say that at least with my mama's White texan friends (who are all at least 60 years old now) every last one of them were born to women who were married WELL before age 20 to men a LOT more than only 3-5 years older. i suppose rich females could just keep going to parties or something, but poor girls who lost whatever looks they had in the hot sun by the day, waiting a long time to snag some guy was not a good idea...

Benji Gil Gamesh is not being paid to be that guy Posted: November 07, 2011 at 04:01 PM (#3988172)

early on, i asked her to marry me twice, and she kind of put it on hold.

According to the logic in this thread, you apparently were supposed to dump her at that point.

NONONO!!!!

- his gf did NOT say - ida wanna talk about it, or pretend she didn't even hear it, or change the subject.

and phred and his woman done already raised their own families. it's different than if his gf was 28, had no kids, and wanted to get married and PHRED refused to talk about it at all.

- as for turning Red (as opposed to Reds) i got over a year to make up my mind what to do. and yes, the decision to go Red has become easier with TLR leaving. i just might go all pirates because andrew mccutchen is teh awesomeness. i just might go all brewers, as long as harveys is alive, just because...

youneverknow

Even the Jews give the females the bar mittvah at age 13 and why would they do that if they were not officially an adult - and that has been going on since, what, 5800 years ago?

Not really. An initiation ritual for boys becoming men is ancient, but extending this particular practice to girls is a modern development. The first public Bat Mitzvah was in 1922.

- females didn't routinely get married until age 20 WHERE? they were capable of reproduction for 8 YEARS before marriage when females were expected to not have pre-marital sex and were not married off??? i have a very VERY hard time believing that with all the large families and the vast majority of people living in poverty that daughters were kept with the family until age 20.

and no i do NOT believe none of that nonsense about how BITGOD females didn't go through puberty until 17 or something. they went through puberty at 13 in the Bible. Even the Jews give the females the bar mittvah at age 13 and why would they do that if they were not officially an adult - and that has been going on since, what, 5800 years ago?

bbc, I didn't do the research, but that's what it says. They have pretty good records on this stuff from Churches in Europe. They kept baptismal/marriage records, and people didn't move around much.

Puberty was much later. Even in the 19th century. The bat mitzvah for women is a 20th century Reform Jewish creation. It didn't exist in Biblical time.

Later marriage was a way of controlling fertility back when most people lived at a subsistence level. Girls generally stayed around the house, or if they went out, it was with older female relatives, or with their younger siblings in tow. So, the opportunities for extra-curricular activities were somewhat controlled.

edit: half a Coke to Teddy F

She did? Heh.

sure.

- females didn't routinely get married until age 20 WHERE? they were capable of reproduction for 8 YEARS before marriage when females were expected to not have pre-marital sex and were not married off??? i have a very VERY hard time believing that with all the large families and the vast majority of people living in poverty that daughters were kept with the family until age 20.

Also, I think pre-marital sex was a lot more common and acceptable throughout history than is commonly understood. Of course it depends where and when you're talking about, but pre-marital sex could be quite a grey area. An exchange of gifts between a young man and woman, a public promise to eventually marry, or even behaviour that just IMPLIED such a promise could be read as a justifiable basis for a sexual relationship in many early modern Western cultures. Communities were often tightly knit, so this was all observed, communal behaviour. Young women who were led on by cads and left with a baby could often find sympathy within their community. Which isn't to say that being a single mom was a cake-walk in the 17th century, especially in the more impersonal urban environments. But there certainly was such a thing as socially acceptable pre-marital sex.

Depending on what communities we're talking about females could provide very useful income for their families through farm labour, but particularly as domestic servants. In many cases, particularly among the working poor, daughters were far from a burden to be married off, but valuable economic members of the household. It was far better for the family to wait until the daughter could be married off to create a self-sustaining independent household than to pawn her off to the first passerby.

I think you are right to point out the rural/urban divide though. I think later marriage are very much an urban phenomenon, where apprentices were often not allowed to marry until they had completed their training and established themselves as skilled labourers (often well into their 20s).

Was contraception practiced often back then? Abortions? Infanticide?

Is this thread about baseball yet or is this still a re-enactment of that 30 Rock episode with the "Dealbreakers" talk show?

Was contraception practiced often back then? Abortions? Infanticide?

Once again it really depends on where and when.
I do know in the 17th century infanticide was one of the worst sins you could commit, and women who did it were thoroughly demonized.

I think there were always the ever-present medicines you could procure from legitimate and not so legitimate sources. Which leads into a whole lot of seedy connections between witchcraft, fertility/infertility, and baby killing. (I actually just got my hands on a trial from the 1610s about the death of the Earl of Rutland's children due to witchcraft that tangentally relates to my research. Looking forward to reading that!)

Probably the most interesting area that's just beginning to be explored is the age-old "base" system, and how it was implemented by young people to get their rocks off without knocking anyone up. It's a tough thing to nail down in the sources but you can get it sometimes in legal disputes over where exactly a couple is in the grey area of pre-marital sex. With such a wide range of non-penetrative sexual options open to them there were often disputes over what was acceptable in any given relationship.

I'm wondering if the woman would have preferred this type of proposal...

The 19:57 from Euston

Was contraception practiced often back then? Abortions? Infanticide?

From The Mother Goose 2x4 Book of Limericks (Random House, 1952):

In days of old
When knights were bold
And rubbers weren't invented
They tied a sock
Around their cock
And babies were prevented

Sheep's gut condoms were fairly common in Europe by the late 1600s, possibly earlier. They weren't foolproof, and they didn't protect against STDs in the way that latex ones do, but they did work most of the time.

snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: November 07, 2011 at 06:06 PM (#3988272)

- females didn't routinely get married until age 20 WHERE? they were capable of reproduction for 8 YEARS before marriage when females were expected to not have pre-marital sex and were not married off??? i have a very VERY hard time believing that with all the large families and the vast majority of people living in poverty that daughters were kept with the family until age 20.

and no i do NOT believe none of that nonsense about how BITGOD females didn't go through puberty until 17 or something. they went through puberty at 13 in the Bible. Even the Jews give the females the bar mittvah at age 13 and why would they do that if they were not officially an adult - and that has been going on since, what, 5800 years ago?

bbc, I didn't do the research, but that's what it says. They have pretty good records on this stuff from Churches in Europe. They kept baptismal/marriage records, and people didn't move around much.


- and a LOT of people were not married in the church. and i would bet there was none of the garden of eden thingy where females were pure as the driven sun until their wedding day at age 20, just after they reached puberty.

Puberty was much later. Even in the 19th century.

- i disbelieve the "much later thing" - i have asked obgyns about this, seeing as how i was taught that mary gave birth to jesus at age 14 - and have been told that female humans go through puberty at age 12-13. this is what we do in aboriginal tribes on their normal diet and even in wartime and even with starvation. the stuff about no puberty until age 18 is nonsense.




- yes i know it didn't exist in the Bible. neither does the - Jewishness is transmitted from mother to child - idea. seeing as how abraham is supposed to have been the first Hebrew and not abraham's mother, i have always had a hard time with that idea. especially as the Old Hebrews and old testament laws were extrememly, uh, not exactly treating females like equal human beings, lets just put it that way


Later marriage was a way of controlling fertility back when most people lived at a subsistence level. Girls generally stayed around the house, or if they went out, it was with older female relatives, or with their younger siblings in tow. So, the opportunities for extra-curricular activities were somewhat controlled.

- i could see the controlling population thing. seeing as how abstinence was the only reliable method of birth control. but unless you execute females for having sex outside of marriage i know females. and i know males. and all those old rules in leviticus about which females you execute and which you don't if they are raped, tells me that if it is true that females didn't go through puberty until 18 or 20 BITGOD, there sure were enough problems with child molestation that leviticus had to have rules about marrying children. you know that the rape laws specify that if the female is seized "in the fields" - so it tells me that a 20 year old woman didn't know enough to never be alone??? so that she would either be killed or forced to marry her rapist.

no - that kind of law wouldn't be written about a 20 year old, it WOULD about a 12-14 year old. and most men are NOT interested in raping pre-pubertal females


PreservedFish Posted: November 07, 2011 at 06:34 PM (#3988287)

Was contraception practiced often back then? Abortions? Infanticide?

- i figure that if there are rules against birth control in the Bible, that people have done/tried to do it enouigh that rules had to be made. same thing with abortion - although i would bet that it was fine for the man to force the woman to have an abortion, but she had no choice in the matter.

when i worked in the old folks home, i heard all KINDS of stories from some of the old ladies about abortions during the depression. my mama told me about how BITGOD there were women you could go to for help if you were in trouble. i'm very sure that females AND couples everywhere had ways they tried to deal with unwanted pregnancies including executing the pregnant female with whatever excuse was necessary

i would bet there was plenty of infanticide, too. you don't want another female to feed, you don't like the baby's looks, you think the baby isn't yours, the baby isn't "normal" etc. i would also bet that a LOT of unwanted babies were killed by their mothers too. very VERY easy to do and get away with, especially if the baby is even a little bit sick. the natural death rate for infants under 1 month not including homicide is not low.

[selective end-points alert]

from the article:

"now I'm dating David Freese"


THAT's news. Kinda snakes her boyfriend a bit...