"In England between 1500 and 1700 the median age of first marriage for women was twenty-six." -Marriage: A History, Stephanie Coontz via Snopes. I haven't done

"In England between 1500 and 1700 the median age of first marriage for women was twenty-six." -Marriage: A History, Stephanie Coontz via Snopes. I haven't done independent fact-checking of this statement, but assuming it is true, and taking it in light of the numbers given in the article, it seems like the 1970s were the historical aberration where people married younger, instead of the present being the aberration for people marrying older. I think the biggest fault of the article is that it takes as its thesis, "Things aren't like when I grew up, and the way things were when I grew up is the natural order of things!"