14 Mean age at first marriage in the Chesapeake colonies was as follows:

Place

Population

Cohort

Males

Females

Charles Co., Md.

native whites

1640-79b

24.1(n = 40)

17.8(15)

Somerset Co., Md.

native whites

1648-69b

23.1(30)

16.5(44)

 

native whites

1670-1711b

22.8(25)

17.0(32)

 

native whites

1710-40b

24.1(25)

19.0(13)

Prince George’s Co.,

native whites

1680-99b

23.1(48)

18.2 (29)

Md. and Lower

 

 

 

 

Western Shore

 

 

 

 

 

 

1710-19b

23.7(72)

18.5 (72)

 

 

1720-49b

25.9(100)

21.4(64)

Southern Maryland

slaves (age at

1725-34

 

17.8

 

1st conception)

 

 

 

 

 

1735-47

 

17.3

 

 

1748-57

 

18.1

 

 

1758-67

 

18.5

Middlesex County, Va.

former servants

thru 1669b

29.5(70)

22.8 (21)

 

 

1670-79b

28.9(21)

23.9 (6)

 

 

1680-89b

27.2(22)

22.9 (8)

 

all others

thru 1669b

28.4(105)

18.7 (86)

 

 

1670-79b

26.7(53)

18.8 (59)

 

 

1680-89b

25.2(92)

20.3 (97)

 

 

1690-99b

24.7(90)

19.6 (94)

 

 

1700-09b

25.0(108)

20.6(118)

 

 

1710-19b

24.4(109)

20.5(119)

 

 

1720-29b

25.0(48)

20.9 (53)

Virginia

elites

1725-34b

27.0

18.3

 

 

1735-44m

28.2

19.8

 

 

1745-54m

30.1

19.5

Sources include Russell R. Menard, “Immigrants and Their Increase …,” in Aubrey Land, Lois Carr and Edward Papenfuse, eds., Law, Society and Politics in Early Maryland (Baltimore, 1977), 100; “The Demography of Somerset County, Maryland: A Preliminary Report”; Lorena S. Walsh, “Charles County, Maryland, 1658-1705: A Study of Chespeake Social and Political Structure” (thesis, Michigan State Univ.), ch. 2; Michael J. Kelly, “Family Reconstitution of Stepney Parish, Somerset County, Maryland” (thesis, Univ. of Md., 1971), 18-25; Kulikoff, “Tobacco and Slaves,” chap. 3; Rutman and Rutman, A Place in Time, Explicatus, 65; Susan Simmons, unpublished research on Virginia elites; R. B. Outhwaite, “Age at Marriage in England from the Late Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century,” RHST 23 (1973), 55-70; Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 46-54; Michael W. Flinn, The European Demographic System, 1500-1820 (Baltimore, 1981), 19-29.