Husband and Wife. In Athens marriage practice was normally endogamous, meaning it stayed within the family, although the system did not specify the relatives with whom marriages were to be contracted. The average age of marriage for girls was fourteen, an age thought to ensure that a girl would be a virgin. For males, the age was around thirty, when they were able to serve on the city council and sit as jurors in the law courts, and after they had completed time in the military. The age differential between husband and wife meant that a woman could have remarried several times in her life, and that a dying husband could arrange a future marriage for his young wife. Betrothal was a transaction conducted completely by males, since girls could not perform any legal activity on behalf of themselves. In contrast to...