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Aurelian_Lure t1_iwehcab wrote

Reply to comment by gener4 in TIL the last Civil War widow died in 2020. by sturnus-vulgaris

Saw this on YouTube a few days ago. She married a 90+ year old when she was a teenager.

Edit:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_who_survived_into_the_21st_century

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j4ckalop3 t1_iwehj3g wrote

Yikes.

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SaborW t1_iwf0o3u wrote

It's really not that yikes-y. We are talking the Great Depression era after all, and she was basically voluntold by her father to help care for the old dying man, in return since he had no money to pay her, they could get married and she could claim his benefits from being in the civil war. During that time, that amount of money could be everything to someone. They kept the marriage a secret, didn't live together, and to my knowledge she never even bothered taking advantage of the benefits after he died

There are still 12 states in the US where there is NO minimum age for marriage, and most states are okay with 17 and under. All requiring parental consent obviously. Now that's pretty yikes

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