[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I dated a lot of young boys from age 13-14 but at 19 I married a man 8 years older who was positioned to “take care of me.”

When my grandmother married she was a teen - I think 16 but definitely an even number, in my recollection, and not 18. She married a widower whose son survived the illness which carried off his mother and sister. I don’t know how old my grandfather was, but it obviously would have been 25 at the least.

I read about Ireland that the reason they were known as “the fighting Irish” was that men didn’t marry until they inherited their fathers’ farms - and thus, functioned pretty much like adolescent boys into their 20s and beyond. And in those circumstances the men would - very ordinarily - marry women ten or more years younger than themselves.

It would certainly seem to be a recipe for the women to routinely be considered immature, when compared to husbands so much their senior in age . . .

[PapaBear3625]

I read about Ireland that the reason they were known as “the fighting Irish” was that men didn’t marry until they inherited their fathers’ farms - and thus, functioned pretty much like adolescent boys into their 20s and beyond. And in those circumstances the men would - very ordinarily - marry women ten or more years younger than themselves.

There's a biological reason for this. An older man who wants children would want a wife who was closer to the beginning of her child-bearing years, rather than at the end of her fertile years.