Why the bachelor requirement for early legionnaires?

[Nephele]

If you signed up for military duty at 17 you are not going to be married at that age, most men did sign up at this age I believe and between wars they would return to their father's farms and eventully their own with their families etc. Until the state took control of their farms and made slaves work their fields leaving the whole family homeless.

 

Romans were considered adults at 15. Women as young as 7 years of age have been recorded as married (though 12 or 13 was more likely). In the Roman world, you grew up a lot faster. You expect to be a grandfather by the age of 35.

 

Under Roman law, those under the age of puberty (called impuberes) were not considered capable of entering into marriage.

 

While no definite age for puberty was fixed in Rome's earliest days, puberty was then generally decided by physical appearance. Later on a fixed age of puberty was established for both boys and girls. For boys, the age of puberty was set at the age of 14 years; for girls it was set at the age of 12 years.

 

Additionally, a girl no younger than 7 years of age might be entered into a betrothal contract, but she could not be considered a legitimate wife until she was at least 12 years of age. And, the ages of 15 and 16 were more likely the age at which Roman maidens were married.

 

While a Roman male donned the toga praetexta at the age of 14, signifying his entry into manhood, it was not until he was generally between the ages of 16 and 18 that he would don the toga virilis, signifying his entry into adult citizenship. It is likely that, after this point, he might have been considered to be at the prime age for military recruitment.

 

-- Nephele

[sylla]

The bulk of the available evidence on Roman age for the first marriage comes from the urban population in the principate.

There is direct evidence for the elite; the early to mid-teens for women and the late teens for men.

Regarding the non-aristocrats, the evidence is almost entirely indirect, fundamentally the age at which spouses replaced parents as commemorators for young adults in epitaphs; at least in Italy and the western provinces, it was circa age 20 for women and age 30 for men.

As usual, Egypt has the best records (census): late teens for women and early twenties for men.