So why does the AI start with a spouse?

Have you seen any girls want to marry computers lately? It's the only way they can get any. Cut them a break, willya?

Considering that all NPC heroes are human, that's only way for fallen to get spouse of same race as they are.

It's my guess that this counters the free recruit janusk in turn 2 (or vice versa).  It's not quite the same, but close enough I guess.

Additionally, it would just be another thing to have to program in, for the AI to find a spouse (and then a suitable spouse, and then WHEN to find a spouse, and when to actually get married [if you note, you often cannot marry immediately, even if you find a npc] )... which is just a lot of bother and hoo hah that is simply solved by starting them off married.

It does, however, have the unfortunate side effect of giving them a large head start on having kids - fortunately they don't know how to make effective use of children yet.

On the flipside, however, it has the bad side effect of encouraging a play style where players ought to get married asap to counter the ai advantage, whether or not they want to (or have the means to).

They also have extremely craptastic spouses, so their children are usually very bad compared to yours.

And children born later tend to have higher essence, because that is connected to the monster level.

Yeah, their spouses are equivalent to the npc's in the escort quests.

Anyways my sovs tend to take a while to get married, as I'm pretty picky when to comes to choosing a queen.  I'd rather keep my sov single then stick him with some fugly city administrator that is useless except for maybe as archer support in a major city's garrison.

Not any more it isn't. This is from the v1.08 change log:

"+ Child essence is no longer modified by spawn rating, but is instead a value between 50% and 100% of the more powerful parent's essence."