I am surprised. Being familiar Southern culture, I seem to have a better understanding of what it was like in the deep South, even as soon as fifty years ago than many other people. People were very poor. For a daughter to 'date' a successful man of means was an honor to the family.
My father was from Kentucky. My mother was from Mississippi.
According to my mother, my father bought her from my grandfather. The price was a pair of heavy field boots. Of course, my grandmother had 13 children. Twelve of them survived. So, trading a daughter for a pair of boots was one less mouth to feed, and a female at that. So she wouldn't lessen the workforce in the fields by leaving.
According to my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents, back then it was common for girls to get out of the house young to make their own way with their new husbands. A wedding was a big event back then. It meant a new woman in the community and a new family in the valley.
Age really didn't factor into it, unless the woman was too old, say mid twenties. That would be considered a mercy marriage.
There are so many people today who just don't know what they are talking about. Including several people on this board.
