Roman funerary commemoration and the age at first marriage
Walter Scheidel
Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics: November (2005)
Abstract
This paper offers a critical assessment of the debate about the customary age at first marriage of men and women in Roman Italy and the western provinces of the early Roman empire. While literary sources point to early female and male marriage (around ages 12-15 and 18-20, respectively) in elite circles, the epigraphic record is mostly consistent with Saller’s thesis that non-elite men did not normally marry until their late twenties. Shaw’s thesis that non-elite women married in their late teens is plausible but remains difficult to test. Comparative data from late medieval Tuscany raise doubts about the applicability of these findings beyond urban environments.
The Saller-Shaw
hypothesis In 1987, Richard Saller and Brent Shaw put the study of Roman age at first marriage on a new footing. Drawing on large samples of Latin epitaphs from the western half of the empire, they interpreted age-specific shifts in the identity of commemorators as proxy evidence for changes in marital status: thus, the age at which spouses replaced parents as commemorators for young adults is taken to denote the usual age of marriage. In most epigraphic samples, these shifts occur around age 30 for deceased men and around age 20 for women. Saller and Shaw concluded that men and women had commonly married in their late twenties and their late teens, respectively, a pattern that broadly resembles the so-called ‘Mediterranean’ marriage pattern found in later periods of southern European history. In 1994, Saller defended the underlying methodology against criticism, adduced new evidence (from the city of Rome) to strengthen the case for moderately early female and late male marriage, and provided a computer simulation of the age-specific likelihood of marriage that matches the observed shifts in commemorative identity
Walter Scheidel
Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics: November (2005)
Abstract
This paper offers a critical assessment of the debate about the customary age at first marriage of men and women in Roman Italy and the western provinces of the early Roman empire. While literary sources point to early female and male marriage (around ages 12-15 and 18-20, respectively) in elite circles, the epigraphic record is mostly consistent with Saller’s thesis that non-elite men did not normally marry until their late twenties. Shaw’s thesis that non-elite women married in their late teens is plausible but remains difficult to test. Comparative data from late medieval Tuscany raise doubts about the applicability of these findings beyond urban environments.
The Saller-Shaw
hypothesis In 1987, Richard Saller and Brent Shaw put the study of Roman age at first marriage on a new footing. Drawing on large samples of Latin epitaphs from the western half of the empire, they interpreted age-specific shifts in the identity of commemorators as proxy evidence for changes in marital status: thus, the age at which spouses replaced parents as commemorators for young adults is taken to denote the usual age of marriage. In most epigraphic samples, these shifts occur around age 30 for deceased men and around age 20 for women. Saller and Shaw concluded that men and women had commonly married in their late twenties and their late teens, respectively, a pattern that broadly resembles the so-called ‘Mediterranean’ marriage pattern found in later periods of southern European history. In 1994, Saller defended the underlying methodology against criticism, adduced new evidence (from the city of Rome) to strengthen the case for moderately early female and late male marriage, and provided a computer simulation of the age-specific likelihood of marriage that matches the observed shifts in commemorative identity
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