Biologically speaking a 16 year old is not a child. Being attracted to one doesn’t make someone a pedophile. Through most of human history the majority of women were married by 16. It may be creepy, but using the term in this case trivialized true pedophilia.
I agree that this slinging of 'pedophile' trivializes the real thing; and you're absolutely correct to note that through history most women were married before 17.
We should also note it wasn't exactly uncommon for an arranged marriage (which a lot of historical marriages were) to have such age-disparities, it would even make sense that parents would prefer older men (say 25 or 30 [+10 or +15 years]) to age-parity precisely because the older would have more time to get established
and be less rash/impulsive than a comparable 16 or 17 y/o man.