LogFAQs > #879739880

ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, when I said "fight" I was leaning more towards the idea of throwing a rock or bopping someone in the nose to distract them so you can then run, not necessarily being able to hold your own (or win) against an actual armed adult.

Though that's actually the kind of thing I was thinking of in terms of "how old is old enough?" - ie, the level of mental maturity to plan effectively and the level of physical maturity necessary to follow through.

tbh, even if you're going to shove your way through a crowd, you'd have to be a certain size. And if your character was going to do any climbing -- which they'd likely need to in order to escape -- they'd have to be a certain height. However, if your city has a sewer system (which can be anachronistic depending on the setting) or other municipal tunnel system, a smaller stature *would* work to their advantage where they could evade detection by ducking in and out of entrances.

Otherwise you could start them out as a beggar then work their way up to thief after studying how others did it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Yeah, but contrary to most people's perception of things, even if a girl was getting married off at age 10, they weren't really seen as adults, per se. It was more the case that they were seen as children who could be legally married off.

It's sort of how, in spite of most people having the impression that people in the past had much shorter lifespans, they didn't really - a lot of the "average" age statistics tend to get pulled down by infant mortality rates. So while we actually have the "facts" right in our heads, our perception of them is deceptive.

Our perception is also a bit skewed by the fact that a lot of what we know about prior cultures is rooted in what writing remains from that period, and most writing was focused mainly on the upper classes. A lot of things considered acceptable for nobles didn't necessarily apply to peasants. For example, girls could be married off at age 12 in England in the Middle Ages, but that would almost exclusively apply to noble girls. Peasant girls likely wouldn't get married until they were at least a few years older, AND would be far more likely to potentially choose their own husband rather than be part of an arranged marriage.

10 maybe not, but certainly by 12 or 13. It doesn't have much to do with total lifespan as much as it did with the fact that they didn't have our view of adolescence. (And, while infant mortality certainly skewed statistics, the lifespans would still be shorter due to a lack of medical care and rampant disease due to cramped, unsanitary living conditions.)

As for the notion of peasants choosing their own husbands, that was more during a *second* marriage since the parents would likely make most of those decisions for the first. And, if a woman of childbearing age who toiled on a lord's land didn't re-marry of choice, the lord could force her to marry whoever he picked (although the practice varied country by country and, of course, didn't apply to cities). Likewise, peasant girls would still be married off young since the family may have wanted the extra space or one fewer mouth to feed; or, if the girl was needed for labor, they could have forced her to wait.
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