Ancient Age of Marriage
It takes some digging, but there is evidence that indicates the normal ages that girls were married in ancient times was between the ages of 12 and 14. I will not go into the ramifications for this, nor any other position, but for the sake of history, I did use this in my story. According to law, a boy becomes a man at age 20, not age 12 as some seem to believe and Bar Mitzvah's aside. Thus, 14 year old girls were married to 20 year old men. You do not understand those times, so stop any wild and sinful speculation. I wanted to keep close to history. The reasons for the early and longer betrothals in my story were due to the nature of the times and the compromise with idolatry, as explained by conversation in the story. It was for protection of the family and the women of those families, to keep them out of the hands of the idolaters. I will not go into the practice of the cults for Baal and Asherah, the two main idols, one male and one female, of that area. Asherah equates to Ishtar in Babylon, and this name actually denotes the wooden idol as well as the goddess herself. The tree that was connected to the worship of this goddess is the date palm, but it does not grow well unless it is in the Jordan valley or near an oasis, so other trees were planted around the worship sites. Junipers and a type of pine did grow on the hills. Junipers are called "broom trees" or "brooms" in some English translations of the bible. There were no special "groves" of trees except in some places the natural forest was left and in others trees were planted more as a "privacy fence" than anything else. The Asherah pole was almost never alone, but by an alter to Baal or next to his image, usually in stone. Many of the rites of worship for Baal and Asherah were lewd and disgusting. Tents were pitched for certain practices near the Asherah, and the references to “eating at the mountain shrines” in the bible have wider meaning that simply eating a meal of things sacrificed to idols, which is bad enough in itself. Enough said.