Melissa Gilbert now feels ‘nauseated’ by age difference with ‘Little House on the Prairie’ husband

NY Post ^ | 11/17/25 | Eric Todisco

[Albion Wilde]

Unlike too many of today's generation - my grandparents focus was faith, family & work.

That is the nub of this dilemma. Marriage was once a rite of passage to adult responsibilities, parenthood, and community membership, where everyone was expected to stick around and slog through the inevitable hard times together. It wasn't about picking someone to have contracepted sex with because they also like avocado toast, sriracha, chai tea and BMWs.

[packrat35]

Ain’t this the truth. Women want is both ways and then complain that we don’t understand.

No $hit Sherlock, how are we supposed to figure out which way you want to go today?

[Tired of Taxes]

I didn’t watch “Little House on the Prairie.” An age difference in casting was not uncommon then.

But everyone was in an uproar when Brooke Shields played in “Pretty Baby” at 11. Then, she starred in “Blue Lagoon” at 14.

Back then, movies had questionable scenes of underage boys with adult women, too - for example, “Weird Science.”

Sometimes, even the actors cringe at themselves when they think back to the casting. But times were different then.

[SmokingJoe]

Is she broke by any chance or merely seeking attention?

[BigFreakinToad]

I find 15 and 23 a bit creepy too. However, didn’t the late great liberal icon RBG once speculate that the age of consent should be 12?

[packrat35]

They are both of legal age. I don’t know why this is a concern of anyone.

[ExSES]

Both of my Great Grandmothers were 15 when they were married to 18 and 19 year old husbands. One became a widow at age 32, the other's husband developed leprosy at age 33 and was removed to the leper's colony in Louisiana. Neither remarried. Marriage at 14 to 16 was very common for women, often they were married to much older men "for the family"... Totally different world!

[Mr Rogers]

I looked it up. The two were married for over 60 years. He died 8 years before she did. By all accounts, they were very close.

Who is Melissa Gilbert (3 marriages) to complain about it?

[Dr. Franklin]

The real Laura Ingalls Wilder was eight years younger than her husband Almanzo Wilder.

They are real historical people. She was born February 7, 1867, and he was born February 13, 1859, almost exactly eight years apart. They married in 1885, and he died first October 23, 1949. They had two children, and it appears to have been a happy marriage. Who is she to judge them?

[Organic Panic]

She best not look at islamic “culture”

[KC Burke]

She spent much of her life in California. While never living there myself ( I know there are good people outside of the big leftist metropolitan areas) I have visited at length about 20 times and spent six months assigned to a project in Sacramento. The women there are literally crazy — it is a feeding frenzy of compounding idiocy.

My wife refuses to go there if I need to visit. She feels like it is a dangerous foreign country.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

1) In the movie Broken Arrow, James Stewart was in reality 42 and his love interest Debra Paget was 16.

Stewart wrote in his biography that he was very uncomfortable with the age differnce between he and Paget.

[cva66snipe]

She better not do any genealogy research on her own real family from the 1800’s early to mid 1900’s. It used to be common for a man to be 10 or more years older than his wife. Pickings due to wars, epidemics, accidents, and such many men died. Both my grandparents had a 10 year difference in age. When I became a widower at age 28 my second wife was 7 years older than I was no big deal.

[CFW]

“This seems ridiculous. That age difference was not uncommon for the time the series portrayed.”

---

It truly is ridiculous. Does she not realize she was playing a part of a character from a century ago? Anyone who has read history understands that men of that time married young women in their prime child-bearing years. Both men and women died at a lot younger age than now. Women often died in childbirth and the husband remarried to provide a help-meet and a mother for his children.

It sounds as if Gilbert is just looking for “woke” accolades.

[GrootheWanderer]

The age difference between her and the actor was less than that between the people they played. It was the 1800s. It was the frontier. Those things happened.

[glorgau]

#MeToo

[RummyChick]

Elvis buddies tell a story about an old powerful studio head who walked with a cane who always had young girls around him. The doctor at MGM told Elvis “ always remember one thing..when times get down there is always a 15 year old around the corner”

[Flaming Conservative]

She was 15, he was 23. Yeah, there probably shouldn’t have been any kissing. They could have filmed it without that. But it was historically correct, if that matters. Grown men in their 40’s were marrying 13 year olds back then, something that had been going on for thousands of years.

[Gay State Conservative]

I understand that. But what do they talk about...other than Gucci and “cuddling”?

[JBW1949]

When I was 47 I dated a girl that was 31...We had good times, but it was just dating...Nothing serious...