Marriages of Minors in Jewish Society in Medieval Ashkenaz: Justifications and Polemics

In the study of Jewish practice and law, the medieval phenomenon of the marriage of female minors is at the center of research controversy. An extensive array of Rabbinic rulings presented in this study leads to the conclusion that marriage of minors was a prevalent phenomenon in medieval Ashkenazi society from the tenth until the fourteenth centuries and beyond. This assumption is supported by detailed discussions conducted by halakhic authorities in Germany and France regarding the marriage ceremony for a minor girl. These authorities offered several justifications for deviating from the Talmudic norm that forbids the marriage of minor girls. Still, Ashkenazi scholars emphasized the Talmudic prohibition against marrying off a minor to a significantly older man as well as the obligation to ask the minor for her consent, which, in light of the accepted norms in the Middle Ages, was viewed as significant. As a rule, the minor girl was married to a male her own age.