User blog comment:Jiskran/Doing the maths/@comment-26412696-20160209164125

To be fair, lifespans were very, very short a couple centuries ago compared to how long they are now. In the Middle Ages most women (and by women, I mean girls as young as 12 or 13) were married by the time they hit puberty. There were definitely some lives cut short, but in a number of them they had to have lived into what was considered adulthood. It's a good point to raise, though; it's not like they ever had a chance to grow old.