Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

by Cat Bohannon

Obviously, this isn’t sustainable on an evolutionary scale: no behavioral group that deliberately injures young females would be able to survive and thrive in the long run. That such practices are seen as “ancient” is only evidence of humanity’s myopia. Sure, once upon a time, child marriage was also fairly normal in places such as China and Europe, but we’re talking only a few hundred years ago, and since then it’s fallen out of favor. Ancient Greece aimed closer to sixteen, as did ancient China, while the age of marriage in ancient Rome ranged from fourteen to twenty. What’s more, in Rome the younger brides were often wealthy and married off as a matter of political exchange; the plebes generally married in their late teens or early twenties. The same was true of China and Greece.