Except that the wife not working is a product of the Victorian era and the rise of whole classes of people where the husband worked outside the home.
I phrased things badly there, I think! I failed to specify, but I was thinking specifically of the Vor class, since we were discussing Piotr and the Emperor. "Rich men who had property and needed an heir" would pretty much perfectly describe the Counts and their heirs (and Emperors) - but not their still well-off but not dynastically important sisters and younger brothers... Hence why I thought that firstborn sons would probably marry younger than their non-inheriting siblings. You're definitely right that it wouldn't apply to the non-Vor, and especially not the rural/farming community where marriage and children are essential!
I was thinking in part of certain ancient cultures, including Sparta (a militaristic culture, relatively few in number), where men were around 25 when they married, and couldn't live with their wives until 30, or ancient Greece, where 30 was a reasonable marriage age for (noble/wealthy) men, with wives generally much younger.
Barrayar, being both a militaristic culture and a future one (and thus capable of looking back on Earth history and adopting whatever bits suited them) might well have borrowed elements from them; Sparta, for one, was big on mandatory military service as being a young man's first obligation, with married life not becoming the focus until later.
I don't think it would have been the pattern for the lower classes, or even for the all-important Vor heirs, but I can certainly see -- in a society/group where significant amounts of money/land and political divides were common, and in which health care and life expectancy were fairly hight -- it being the pattern for a lot of the Vor. (Barrayarans have a lot to say about Byerly Vorrutyer, for instance, but his not being married doesn't seem to be one of them. Ivan, who's around the same age as By, doesn't seem to find his unmarried state at 30ish unusual or worthy of comment, and his mother is the only one we see make an issue of it.)
Hmm... what a good excuse for a re-read of the series! :D
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I phrased things badly there, I think! I failed to specify, but I was thinking specifically of the Vor class, since we were discussing Piotr and the Emperor. "Rich men who had property and needed an heir" would pretty much perfectly describe the Counts and their heirs (and Emperors) - but not their still well-off but not dynastically important sisters and younger brothers... Hence why I thought that firstborn sons would probably marry younger than their non-inheriting siblings. You're definitely right that it wouldn't apply to the non-Vor, and especially not the rural/farming community where marriage and children are essential!
I was thinking in part of certain ancient cultures, including Sparta (a militaristic culture, relatively few in number), where men were around 25 when they married, and couldn't live with their wives until 30, or ancient Greece, where 30 was a reasonable marriage age for (noble/wealthy) men, with wives generally much younger.
Barrayar, being both a militaristic culture and a future one (and thus capable of looking back on Earth history and adopting whatever bits suited them) might well have borrowed elements from them; Sparta, for one, was big on mandatory military service as being a young man's first obligation, with married life not becoming the focus until later.
I don't think it would have been the pattern for the lower classes, or even for the all-important Vor heirs, but I can certainly see -- in a society/group where significant amounts of money/land and political divides were common, and in which health care and life expectancy were fairly hight -- it being the pattern for a lot of the Vor. (Barrayarans have a lot to say about Byerly Vorrutyer, for instance, but his not being married doesn't seem to be one of them. Ivan, who's around the same age as By, doesn't seem to find his unmarried state at 30ish unusual or worthy of comment, and his mother is the only one we see make an issue of it.)
Hmm... what a good excuse for a re-read of the series! :D