Humans
In most Scarterran nations, humans are of legal marrying age at 16 for both men and women. Just because human
can get married sixteen doesn't mean they often do.
If an unmarried noble family has a claim on land and/or a title, and they have only one heir, the parents and extended will push the heir to get married as soon as possible and probably arrange something a betrothal and age ten or eleven and marry their son or daughter and soon as the younger child of the betrothed couple turns sixteen.
If a noble family has multiple "spare heirs" they are probably not going to rush a marriage as much, and they might milk a period of betrothal for several years, often waiting for a specific zodiac year to commence a marriage. As long as the expected heir is married by twenty, they aren't going to make a fuss. Noble families without a solid claim on land tend to marry their children off by twenty-two.
It is considered somewhat odd and undesireable for a nobleman to not be married or at least betrothed by twenty-seven or a noble woman to not be married by twenty-four, even if they are not in line for any land or titles.
Among the lower classes, women tend to get married around age twenty on average. Couples that marry love usually have the bride and groom marry at roughly the same age. Couples that marry for convenience or for economic reasons often have a wide age gap with the groom often much older than the bride. To get married, a would-be groom needs to be able to demonstrate an ability to support a family with a trade and a would-be bride need only be fertile.
Elves
The elf legal age of majority is 90, but this is not always the age of a legal marriage. Elf adolescence roughly stretches from 55 to 90. Whether they arranged marriage or marry for love, frequently meet their future spouse well before the age of ninety. Large age gaps are fairly rare among elf couples elves unless a widow or widower of high status remarries.
The dark elf population has yet to recover to from the East Colassian War. Many grey elves are bitter that their once mighty empire is on a long, slow decline. The cultural leaders of grey elves and dark elves are concerned about the future of their race, and believe that their political survival depends on maintaing or increasing their numbers. Elders in both these groups put a lot of social pressure on their young adults to marry and have many childern.
Wood elves have the opposite problem and are mildly concerned about becoming too populous and over taxing the capacity of
their forest home of Codenya. In general, wood elves elders do not put a lot of effort towards pushing their young adults to marry and have children. Unless it's
their children, in which case wood elves still want at least a few grandchildren.
Grey elves consider legal marrying age to be 81 but an ideal marriage age is between 100 and 110 (or 95 to 105 if highborn). It is generally considered odd and undesirable to be unwed at 150 unless the goal is to be celibate for life, or 140 if the elf is highborn.
Dark elves consider legal marrying age to be 90 but an ideal marriage age is between 105 and 125. It is generally considered odd and undesirable to be unwed at 160 unless the goal is to be celibate for life. High status and low status dark elves do not differ from each other in typical marriage ages.
Wood elves consider legal marrying age to be 90 and ideal marriage age to be around 130 (generally after the
Rumspringa. Most wood elves either marry their childhood sweetheart during their Rumspringa around age 100, or if they don't have a childhood sweetheart (or they have a falling out said sweetheart, they will usually marry an elf from a distant province around 130-150. It is generally considered odd and somewhat undesirable to be unwed by 170 or 155 if the elf is highborn.
Gnomes
A gnome is considered the age of majority at thirty-five. Common wisdom among humans is that gnomes mature at half the rate of humans so a gnome's 35 is equivalent to a human's 16. That's not quite true. Gnomes age a little faster than that. A gnome's 35 is physiologically closer to a human's 20 than 16.
Gnomes communities often create a lot of dances or other supervised courtship events for young gnomes between 23 and 35. A lot of gnomes find their partner at a relatively young age and get married fairly quickly after their thirty-fifth birthday. On average, gnome grooms are about five years older than their brides.
Gnome women face a lot pressure from their extended families to become married before age 50. Gnome men are expected to marry by 60 at the latest.
Wealthy and high status only face a little bit more pressure to get married than poor and low status gnomes.
Dwarves
Dwarves reach the age of majority at age 40. Dwarves, historically and to a lesser extant presently face extreme population pressures.
There is a lot of population pressure to get married fairly young. Dwarf women are generally expected to be married by age 60. Meckelorn dwarves really apply a lot of pressure, but the other dwarf cultures haven't fallen that far from the tree on that regard.
Dwarf men are generally expected to be married whenever they "find their fortunes" which is fairly vaguely defined, and as a result there is frequently a wide age gap between brides and grooms.
Per usual,
Mondarian dwarves break a lot of dwarf cultural norms. Mondarian courtships are generally informal affairs and arranged marriages are rate. Mondarians view marriage as union of love more than as a business transaction, and as a result, age gaps between brides and grooms are usually fairly small. Young men and women
still face a lot of societal pressure to get married have children. That aspect of dwarf culture is universal in Scarterra.
Tengku
Tengku mature very quickly, reaching the age of maturity age 9 and usually kicked out the nest before age 10. It is not unheard of to marry earlier or later but most tengku wed between the ages 15 and 25. Most tengku die of old age in their fifties but they usually remain fertile well into their forties.
Usually, men and women are close to the same age as their spouses, but there are extreme exceptions among the very wealthy. The wealthiest tengku (both males and females) often marry much younger partners. Particularly if they are on their second or third wife. Tengku divorces are generally more common and stigmatized than among other races as long as their chicks are well educated.
Tengku that choose to not to marry or choose to marry later than usual do not face much social pressure compared to what the other races commonly inflict on their young adults. Tengku are pushed to find their fortune. What they do what their fortune is up to them. Parental instincts are usually strong enough that societal pressure is unnecessary.
Satyrs
Satyrs reach the age of majority at 18. Satyrs are fertile at 14, but for a race with relatively few sexual taboos, satyr adults can be surprisingly hard nosed about stopping their kids from having kids.
Satyrs generally have few if any hangups about having recreation non-procreative sex, and they are pretty open about using contraceptives. They
do want to continue the satyr race but don't put a lot of social pressure on their herd mates to do this counting on normal biological drives to push this process without interference. Satyr elders generally don't want satyrs to have kids until they are ready.
Satyrs are individualistic and there are no hard or fast rules on what "ready" looks like. Satyr women can still have healthy babies in their early sixties, but most satyr herds believe that 25 to 45 is generally the best time to have kids.
Satyrs do not put as much stock on lineage as the other races. If a satyr actually has enough accumulated wealth to warrant a true inheritance, they usually spread their wealth to many friends and family rather than to a small number of their direct lineage.
Satyrs say the term "it takes a village to raise a child" was invented by them, though they say it "it takes a herd to raise a child." Since satyr kids are taken care of by basically raised by every adult, it is not as important for their parents to stay together though this is still considered a good thing.
Satyr couples generally stay together as long as both partners want to. They rarely make a ceremony out of coupling though they might actually introduce each other as "husband" and "wife".
The major exception is the
Confederate satyrs. Their herd is more geographically dispersed than most other satyr herds, so they cannot rely on a small army of aunts and uncles to help shoulder the child rearing burden. They are lucky to have intermittant access to two or three uncles and aunts.
On top of this, the local culture of East Colassia is not very friendly to
half-satyr babies, since they are hard to tell apart from
half dark elves. Confederate satyrs actually do have marriage ceremonies (though they are pretty informal) and they face societal pressure to stay together at least long enough for their kids reach adulthood.
Half-elves
half-human half-elves are considered to reach the age of majority at 25, but there are well established norms for half-elf marriage outside of Apeseldia.
Apseldian Half-elves have a strong culture. Due to the siege mentality Apseldia has and their concerns of maintaining their identity. This leads to pressure to make half-elf babies. Apseldian culture pushes a cultural norm that Apseldian should at least be married and having their first child by age 50 at the very least. Lifetime monogamy is considered morally desireable as is having lots of kids. Apseldian culture generally frowns on large age-gap couples. Apseldian half-elves mating with humans is generally frowned upon because the children usually manifest as humans which dilutes the Apseldian half-elf population.
All that said, Apseldian culture has a strong strain anti-authoritarianism baked into it. A lot of half-elves break all sorts of marriage and sexual norms much to the chagrin of many conservative and/or hypocrtical elders.
The
half dark elves are mostly enslaved. Whether they are allowed to marry and form families freely or not depends on the whims of their masters. I don't want to dive too deep into the weeds on this subject for now.
Outside of Apseldia and Kahdisteria, half-elves are generally a tiny minority living in the lands of other races. They are perpetually outsiders but this outsider status gives them the freedom to pursue their own relationships on their own terms though they may not have a lot of options for romantic partners. A lot of humans and elves like the idea of sleeping with a half-elf but relatively few of them want to marry one, if only to avoid marrying a person who ages at a drastically different rate than they do. If a half-elf want to marry another half-elf, they probably have a very small pool of age potential partners to choose from.
Kalazotz
Kalazotz reach the age of majority at 15. Kalazotz have faced a lot of intermittant disasters throughout their history and they encourage others of their own kinds to have large families.
Kalazotz tend to marry young and kalazotz tend to find it odd for one of their own to not be married by 21. There is rarely a significant age gap between couples. Widows and widowers rarely remarry. Kalazotz tribes generally do not believe in arranged marriages. If a kalazotz doesn't want to have children (or can't) they can avoid social pressure if they become a priest or priestess and/or act as dutiful uncles and aunts.
Kalazotz generally live most of their lives within a single cloud of about 50 to 100 zotz. To avoid inbreeding, clouds make it a point to meet up with other clouds often and this is when informal courtship happens.
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