Lyanna was 15 and Rhaegar was 24 and you don't see what is all about. Rhaegar is a sick pedo
If you don’t mind I will offer you a little history lesson.
In medieval Europe legal age of marriage was 12 for girls and 14 forboys. Many people married at older age due to financial reasons. It doesn’t mean people never had sex before marriage. Some did and some had children born out of wedlock. Some young mothersraised their children, some abandoned them. Men visited brothels and slept with teenage prostitutes.
In some countries like Italy, young brides were sought afterbecause men wanted their brides to be virgins and young age guaranteed chastity. 13–14 year old girlsoften married men in their thirties.
Plenty of noble born brides were younger than Lyanna when they got married. I will give you a couple of examples:
Isabella of France married to Edward II of England in 1308,Isabella was 13, Edward was 24
Joan I of Auvergne married her firsthusband Philip of Burgundy in 1338, she was 12, he was 15
Joanna of Bourbon married her cousin Charles, the future king ofFrance, in 1350, they were both 12
Hedwig, a daughter of King of Poland and Hungary, was 12 when shemarried 35 year old Jogaila of Lithuania in 1384
Isabeau of Bavaria married King Charles VI in 1385, she was 15 andthe king was 17
Charlotte of Savoy married in 1451 to Louise, the future king ofFrance, she was 10, he was 27
Anne of France, a daughter of Louis and Charlotte, married in1473, she was 12 and her husband, Peter of Bourbon, was 35
Lucrezia Borgia married her first husband, Giovanni Sforza, in1493, she was 13, Giovanni was 29
These are only a couple of examples, there were more pairings like these. Their marriages were consummated on their wedding nights. They didn’t wait till 18 to do it like you can sometimes read on tumblr. Most of them welcomed their first child a year after their wedding.
George Martin wanted a medieval setting for A Song of Ice and Fire. As you can see above young brides are not his original idea, they simply happened a lot before humanity acquired the concept of prolonged childhood and teenagers. Before that it was just childhood and young adulthood with all its duties.
Rhaegar and Lyanna marriage wasn’t shocking due to her age but due to a scandal they caused when they ran off together. Lyanna is often referred to as a child-woman not because she wasn’t ready for marriage by their standards, but because she died prematurely and because there is a connection between her and Arya who is still a child. Lyanna was betrothed to Robert at 13 and she would have married him at the same time she married Rhaegar if she hadn’t run away. If they had been free of other obligations perhaps Rhaegar would have waited until she was 16 or older to marry her but they didn’t have time for this and Lyanna was to marry anyway. It wasn’t her age that attracted him but her personality.
Now, if you really want to find a pedophile in asoiaf point you finger at Robert Baratheon. Some of Robert’s lovers were children 11-12 years old. He paid good money to the brothels to find those girls for him as Ned Stark learned in King’s Landing:
The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she’d been a virgin, the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough.
Robert was 36 when he made Barra with that child prostitute in Chataya’s brothel. It wasn’t an arranged marriage and a duty of conceiving a heir. It was a pleasure he paid for. Quite alarming, isn’t it?
Then, no. Rhaegar was not “a sick pedo.”
He was a love struck prince, that’s all.
Thank you for the ask.
