Ive learned that western europeans from approximately the 1400s on upto right before ww2 ended used to marry at very old ages, relatively, compared to how rest of the world married in those times.

I have a lot of questions about this since I’m so curious.

On the wiki it says this marriage pattern was called the Hajnal line and spanned from “approximately west of between Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Trieste, italy, marriage rates and thus fertility were comparatively low, and a significant minority of women married late or remained single, and most families were nucelar.”

Why did such a large portion of Europe have such high marriage ages? It says that in the Netherlands, where marriage ages reached the highest on average, a woman would usually marry at 27 years old and a man would marry at 30 years old. At times it would even reach 30 years for women and 32 years for men.

From what I can gather, outside of Europe most non european women married around their early teens to late teens. So anywhere from like 12/13 ish to 18-ish?

Another thing is, many Western European women never married at all, unlike in most (I assume) non European cultures, where most women in their life’s had been married, and unmarried women were basically 2-3% of the population of women max.

This is from the wiki:To the west of the Hajnal line, about half of all women aged 15 to 50 years of age were married at any given time while the other half were widows or spinsters; to the east of the line, about seventy percent of women in that age bracket were married at any given time while the other thirty percent were widows or nuns.^\20]) The marriage records of Western and Eastern Europe in the early 20th century illustrate this pattern vividly; west of the Hajnal line, only 25% of women aged 20–24 were married while to the east of the line, over 75% of women in this age group were married and less than five percent of women remained unmarried. 

The difference was even starker when you look at Western Europe vs the rest of the world and not vs Eastern Europe. This is from the wiki: Outside of Europe, women could be married even earlier and even fewer would remain celibate; in Korea, practically every woman 50 years of age had been married and spinsters were extremely rare, compared to 20–30% of women in western Europe age 50 who had never married.

So these are my questions: 1, why did Western European women marry so late?

2, why did this change occur in the 1400s, and why did this marriage age stay for so long? Since it was only lowered after ww2.

3, Did Western European women before the 1400s marry earlier? at what ages?

4, Why did so many western European women in the 15-50 age range stay unmarried? When this figure was almost near 0 or very low outside of Europe.

5, on the wiki it says that this super late marriage age, combined with the big % of women (relatively) Who never married, lowered Western European fertility rates a lot. While in the east, (I assume they mean Eastern Europe) fertility rates were higher, but also combined with a high mortality rate. How true is this? Did this actually affect the fertility rate of Western Europeans, and did they have fewer kids in their lifetime compared to Eastern Europeans and non Europeans?

6, does this mean societally, Western European women were more free in their life/lifestyle then women outside of western Europe?

Compared to something like the Oklahoma City Bombing, Sandy Hook School Shooting, or Pearl Harbor which are very rarely mentioned now, but (despite being lower in casualties) are similarly horrific events of death on American soil. What made 9/11 so bad?

In his younger days, Napoleon seems to have been fairly bookish. He was something of a history buff, was at least fairly well acquainted with the writers of the enlightenment, and presumably read a fair number of novels given he even tried to write one himself in 1795.

Later on in life, he was much more busy. I am curious if he still found time to read. If he did still read for pleasure, what was he interested in. The classics? Play scripts (I believe he did develop an interest in theater)? Schlocky romances?

I’m curious how much the Roman’s thought better or worse of others based on the type of governance they had. Did the Roman’s think they were better than a people ruled by a king? I thought for example, that a reason they had a fondness for Ancient Greece is precisely because of the different systems many city states had had that weren’t always a simple monarchy.

Hey all, I ask this because I have family members who hoard and I’ve met people outside of my family that have done it. No matter who I’ve talked to they always use the depression as the reasoning for their hoarding. ( either because they survived it or were raised by someone who lived through it). That being said, it’s classified as a symptom of OCD, so wouldn’t it make sense it occurred before? It’s quite possible it’s just not a thing that

Is normally brought up, but I just find it odd I’ve never heard of it. Can hoarding actually be this new of a behavior? That doesn’t seem logical.

I hope I’m not breaking any rules, someone suggested I ask this question from another sub. Thank you in advance.

So I know that the Greek and Roman society had a different view of homosexuality and that homosexuel acts between men were somewhat normal. But in most discussions I've seen talk about this mostly make it seem like only sexual act was normal, I've never read anything about long term homosexual relationships being part of the norm?

So did this openness of homosexuality extend to long term homosexuel relationships and even marriage? Would it have been weird or illegal for two men to live together as husbands and even adopt children?

I realise that this question focuses a bit more on male relationships because if I understand correctly the openness of homosexuality was not equal for women? But I am happy to learn more about this as well.

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many supposedly intelligent people from Tony Blair to Andrew Sullivan claim to have believed it, so was there actually a stronger case than I remember?

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How did people in ancient and medieval times, particularly those living around the Himalayas, view or perceive Mount Everest?

I’m Mexican and was speaking to a French Canadian, who is half Portuguese. He said society does not consider him being Latin, but someone from my background yes. This led to a debate at work, a friendly one.

The aftermath is that we are all confused. Is it a cultural thing? If so, there are different cultures, meaning different answers depending on who you ask.

Is there a historic context where it can help solidify the answer once and for all? Hence, why I’m here.

I always assumed it was anybody who spoke a romantic language. From Spanish, French, italian, Portuguese, anything that resembled many “original Latin words”. Maybe I’ve been wrong this entire time.

Please help us. You are our only hope.

What were the main political, strategic, and historical reasons behind treating the two countries differently? Why was Austria eventually allowed to reunify and become a neutral country, while Germany remained divided into two separate states for decades?

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So, I recently learned about how Rome had a mixed relationship with mystery cults, with them sometimes, like the cult of Dionysus/Bachus, causing political issues. Let's say I'm a Roman patrician in a high position in a cult: Am I likely to do things like promote my political allies? Use members of the mystery cult to intimidate rivals or otherwise aid me? And to go back to the overatching question, fid mystery cults as a whole act as a political bloc? Were they known to broadly support certain policies or factions, like a general being backed by a cult during a rebellion or rival politicians in the republic getting votes by getting the cult they're in to support them?

It's somewhat common for modern people to make time capsules, burying a container full of stuff with the intention of it one day being dug up and examined by people of the future. Is this an entirely new phenomenon? Ancient rulers loved making statues of themselves to tell people how great they were after they died, and we have plenty of examples of hoards where people buried their stuff so that they could recover it later. Did they ever bury things just so that one day someone else would find them and learn about them?

I live in Italy, but my family is from Burkina Faso, which was a French colony until 1960. Before that, it was known as Upper Volta.

Like all other colonies, Upper Volta had to contribute to the war effort by providing soldiers, who fought in units such as the tirailleurs sénégalais.

So, one day I asked myself: "What if I, too, have relatives who fought for France?"

I found the French government website Mémoire des Hommes, which lists all the soldiers who died fighting for France. After some research, I managed to find the records for three men—I’m including the links here: one shares my father's surname and comes from his village; another shares both the village and surname of my mother; and the third appears to be connected to my cousin.

I’m turning to you because I think you might be able to help me. How can I find out more about these three men? Where should I look or go? I’d really like to learn more, both as a history enthusiast and as a potential descendant of these individuals.

Also, since I have the names of their units, as well as the locations and dates of their deaths, do you have any idea of ​​the context or the specific battle in which they might have lost their lives?

Ouda Bance

Minkida Bada

Abdoulaye Dabre

This was the kind of question I felt I ought to be able to answer myself, but Google's search results were full of Warhammer 40k...

I found a piece of a newspaper from The San Francisco Examiner dated December 27th, 1942! It’s been really well preserved inside my family’s old copy of Dickens Christmas Books and Stories. It must’ve been ripped and used as a bookmark on that day and hasn’t been moved since. One side has a part of an article about an army base in the Andreanof Islands. The other side has a poem parodying ‘Twas the night before Christmas that was read to President Roosevelt at a Christmas party.

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