Age of consent/legal marriage in the Known Worlds

[Bertjammin]

At what age can an individual in the Phoenix Empire legally a) have sex b) get married?

I realise some House/regional law might be different but what would be the general average/accepted age? Remembering that this is a feudal, faux-medieval society rather than a progressive modern society...

[Angelman]

I don't think this has ever been officially addressed, but I would say that individual faction cultures decide this. (In the truncated FS3, we had a culture skill - which covered languages, social normes and rules, and other such facets - for each faction. Fun times!). Usually, I would think that most cultures keep marriage age to somewhere around sexual maturity - in other words, if you can procreate, you're an adult; still, varriations could very well occur.

[Leviathan of Maddoc]

I would say sociologically young. Age of maturity in a culture is reflective on when society needs citizens to assume adult roles of work and contract liability. Fading Suns is a laborious culture that has recently ended a generations-long war. They would have need of young people to assume adult roles in the society. Most planets would likely have 15 or 16 year olds able to marry, join the guild, be executed for capital crimes. More conservative cultures might sitll restrict intercourse or legal drug use to 17 or 18 year olds. Places with a lot of air traffic might have completely different ages for flittler or hopper licences as those more often reflect an age of competence.

[Darksyde]

As a rule of thumb I would go with what ever age is socially acceptable to your group of players.

[Leviathan of Maddoc]

I'm pretty much with Darksyde, the accuracy of having a 13 year old being forced into an arrange marriage she doesn't want isn't worth the creepiness factor of the situation for players, unless you're looking to make things creepy, then play on.

[Bertjammin]

[etherial]

[Angelman]

Interesting fun fact; in mid-to-late 19th century Norway, the average marrying age for women were 28 years old. I cannot varrify this or explain the reason, it is just one of the fun facts I remember from uni. history courses 15-18 years ago. The lesson to be learnt though is that all bets are off; whatever fits your story is "realistic".

[Bertjammin]

[Madmage]

The average marrying age of England in the middle ages was about 26. People tend to spend way too much time looking at life expectancy and adjusting everything accordingly instead of wondering why it was low. For the most part, the infant mortality rate was just so high that it skews the ages. Outside of nobility, most people were married in their twenties. What some might describe as typical spinsters were in their late 30s and 40s.

Just another aspect of society the original designers got horribly wrong.