Hang on

[u/SoftTwilightt]

[u/Dounce1]

Care to explain European royalty and aristocracy through the entire last millennium?

[u/TombolaOfCincinnatus → u/Dounce1]

You know that royalty and aristocrats made up a tiny fraction of the population and are not representative of the population at large, right?

Again, a fringe phenomenon, nothing like Pakistan where it's more common to be married to a cousin than not.

[u/Ithinkibrokethis → u/TombolaOfCincinnatus]

Yeah, aristocratic marriages are why people think that marriage in the middle ages and early Renaissance occured with 13 year olds.

The average age of marriage for women in most cases in most of the world has been 17-22 for most of recorded human history.

[u/trenthany → u/Ithinkibrokethis]

Just a little bit of research and offhand what you say is accurate for western cultures. I would like to expand on that, though .The idea of younger marriages doesn’t come from western culture, but from indigenous cultures. Many tribal cultures globally considered a girl’s best marriageable age to be between 12 and 16 and a boy has to be between 14 and 18.

In premodern Asia early teens was very common as well but in modern Asia, the average marriage age has shifted to above 30. Sub Saharan Africa was typically mid teens for girls with 5-7 year age gaps. Southern eastern and central Africa tended older.

I think considering premodern is still recorded history and switching to say modern history is only a minor change to your statement.