
When traditional marriages first started appearing in the Middle Ages, the average life expectancy was 25-30 years. It’s now 84.4 and 80.5 for women and men respectively. That gives a whole new meaning to “till death do us part”!
Marriages in the Middle Ages were usually arranged to ensure that treaties between royal families, nobles and tribes were upheld. They were often strategic moves rather than anything involving love or romance – unless you were a peasant, in which case you had a little more say over whom you married.
Around this time it was decided that all marriages had to be held in a church so that records could be kept, and it had to be done in front of two witnesses (best man and maid-of-honour). This was to stop people running off later and dodging their responsibilities.
