] I found that tidbit of information quite fascinating because I had the impression from JA novels and Georgette Heyer books that the average bride was much, much younger! I would have guessed the average bride was around nineteen or so....did you find that surprising, too?

Yes, that did surprise me. I used to think that most woman married before they were twenty-five.

] It also thwarts the idea of all those marriage-crazy women you so often read about in novels (not Jane Austen novels though), the woman reluctant to marry who rejected suitors (as Jane Austen herself for example!) was much more common than I thought.