Pathfinder always seemed to have this sirt of sexual vibe to it, which seems to still be the case, what with things like the draikaina in Bestiary 4. One of my sessions included anlittle thiught exercise: what is the age of consent in the setting? Now, i dont plan on having pcs romancing young characters or anything but with human pics being as young as 16, the question is soon to come up. Since it's a medieval fantasy setting, would it be in poor taste for the local blacksmith to have a 13 year old spouse in some regions? What in canon reasons would there be to have an age of consent in golarion? I am well aware that this to
I picked is not touched because of ethical and moral reasons in the real world. I just like knowing or theorizing why these things are the way they are in the setting
In the medieval era, a woman was considered good for marriage as soon as she had her periods. But you have to keep in mind that in this era, it happened much more later than nowadays, especially for peasants.
IIRC, in medieval times, the average age of the 1st menstruation was around 17 or 18 years.
In noble families, where children were well fed and had access to doctors, it happened a few years earlier.
If you want some examples of very young brides : in Romeo & Juliet, Juliet is supposed to be 13 (and Romeo more than 20), Marie-Antoinette was married to future king Louis XVI when she is only 14. Hildegarde is 13 when she is married to Charlemagne (who is at least 10 years older).
This is something which Paizo, wisely, has not touched upon. GMs can run it as they want with rules that suit the play style and maturity level of their group.
If you want to make it simple just go by the bare minimum age a person can play for a character going by random starting ages. So for example the youngest a human can be as a barbarian, rogue or sorcerer is 16 while a dwarf is 43.
Brilliant.
If you're old enough to wander out into the wilderness and kill monsters, you're old enough to consent to sex.Truth be told, I think it would depend on the country/region/society you live in. I would expect Kellid or Garundi tribes living in a harsh environment to have a much younger age of consent/marriageable than people living in Taldor or Cheliax. Anywhere between 13-18 would be right depending on society with some, like Shoanti or Varisian coming of age rituals, being somewhere in between.
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Not really. the Kineticist is an "Intuitive" class, meaning you need to be 16 at minimum to be a part of it.
Yoon breaks the rules in multiple ways (child characters per RAW can only take levels in NPC classes in the first place, for one), and shouldn't be used as a basic example of someone of that class.
Some guidelines from our world:
“Until the late 20th century U.S. age of consent laws specifically names males as perpetrators and females as victims. Following English law, in which the age was set at 12 in 1275 and lowered to 10 in 1576, ages of consent in the American colonies were generally set at 10 or 12. The laws protected female virginity, which at the time was considered a valuable commodity until marriage. The theft of a girl’s chastity was seen as a property crime against her father and future husband. If two people were married and had sex, no matter what their age, no crime was committed because a woman was her husband’s property. In practice, too, the consent laws only protected white females, as many non-white females were enslaved or otherwise discriminated against by the legal system.” --Sex and Society, Volume 1 page 54.
Based on this, it would not be unusual for your blacksmith to have a 13-yo wife.
Side note: Juliet was 13 but Romeo's age was only described as "young."
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Folks, this is teetering on the edge, so let's end this before it gets too sketchy.
Relationships in Golarion and in all Pathfinder products are between consenting adults.
I'd encourage you all to never consider "historical accuracy" as license to take your stories into territory that makes your players or community members uncomfortable.
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