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Lately I have been wondering why our society is (or seems to be) increasingly hostile towards romantic/sexual relationships between a (1) a man; and (2) a much younger woman. Recently I read that a well respected football coach -- Bill Belichick -- was denied admission to the Football hall of fame based on the fact that he is in a romantic relationship with a woman who is much younger than him.
What's interesting to me is that for many years, there has been a popular idea that it's completely fine for two consenting adults to enter into a sexual/romantic relationship, even if those two adults are the same sex; even if they are different races; and so on. Societal disapproval of relationships between an older man and a younger woman seem to be an exception to what could be called the "love is love" principle.
I admit that I have a personal interest in this issue: I am a middle aged man and my fiancee is a good deal younger than me. I will call this an "age-gap relationship" or "AGR." (For purposes of this post, I am referring to AGR's involving an older man and a younger woman.)
I can think of a few hypotheses:
(1) My initial assumption is wrong; outside of a few extremists online, most people don't care about AGRs. As noted above, my fiancee is a great deal younger than me; we have gotten the occasional curious glance while out in public, but I haven't directly experienced any hostility. That being said, the case of Bill Belichick seems to suggest that this sentiment is affecting real world decisions.
(2) This is reflective of society's increasing hatred of and hostility towards men. Although it's been common for decades for TV commercials to portray wives as smarter, wiser, and generally better than their bumbling idiot husbands, it seems this trend has gotten much more intense in recent years. "women are superior to men" is pretty much the constant drumbeat in most media these days. Coupled with that is the idea that male desires are invalid and illegitimate. Against this backdrop, arguably one would expect that society would disapprove of AGRs inasmuch as they are perceived to satisfy the common male sexual desire for younger women.
This explanation appeals to me since it fits with the (very satisfying) idea that my outgroup (progressives) are mainly just bad people who are full of hate, but I will try to keep an open mind.
(2a) Women (whose sentiment has a huge impact on societal values) object to these relationships since it reminds them of a significant disadvantage they have in comparison to men: Female sexual attractiveness inevitably and steeply declines relatively early in life. Since women tend to compare themselves to the most elite men, they get the frustrating impression that society has made life extremely unfair for them. Perhaps women have always felt this way and what's changed is that they have more of a voice.
(3) The internet and social media has made it much easier for AGRs to develop so it's a bigger issue. This seems plausible to me, but on the other hand when I was in high school many years ago there were sexual/romantic relationships between teachers and students. Although these were never approved of, they are far less tolerated nowadays than they were in the 70s and 80s.
(4) Society has become aware that these types of relationships have a much greater opportunity for abuse. While there are definitely a lot of predatory men out there, my issue with this explanation is that there are a lot of relationships (both romantic/sexual and non-romantic/sexual) which entail a lot of abuse and predation, which relationships society doesn't seem to care all that much about.
(5) There's no real reason per se. It's just a self-reinforcing bandwagon effect. This is definitely a possibility but it's difficult to think of how this hypothesis could be verified. Besides, this hypothesis doesn't seem to explain, in a satisfactory way, why society would make this exception for the general "love is love" principle.
(6) It reminds people of guys like Jeffrey Epstein. The thinking is that if a man will openly date a 19 year old, chances are he secretly lusts after females who are below the legal age. This seems plausible, but it doesn't really account for societal disapproval of a relationship between someone who is 70 and someone who is 24. (Or does it?)
Anyway, I would be interested to hear peoples' thoughts on this subject.
I feel confident saying its a mix of (2) generally and (2a), specifically intrasexual competition driven by the fact that Millenials are hitting their late 30's 40s, many, MANY of them single (including both those who were married, and who got divorced). And they're now facing down the implications of this situation in a way that prior generations never had to.
And now we've got a sizeable surplus of older women who are effectively 'unionizing' to try and preserve their value in the marketplace, and a surplus of older guys who are in the 'prime' (if they took care of themselves physically) and have the wealth to expend on acquiring the things they missed out on in their younger days. No, its not unique to millenials, but I suspect that the environment they're in is creating pressures previous generations didn't experience at the social level.
On top of the complete demolition of any social/religious guidance around dating, leaving everyone to do things on an ad hoc basis.
Older women would love to prevent older men from getting taken off the market by younger women. Rationally so! They have an uneasy alliance with younger men who would ALSO like to keep older men from competing.
The only way to restrict wealthier older men from 'poaching' young women is either massive doses of social shame (which Celebs, at least, are probably immune to) OR getting them MeToo'd (which is a specific type of social shame that can also carry legal consequences). So some sort of 'moral' framework gets built out around these relationships to attempt to justify the attacks.
I've pointed out that if we don't have a system where EVERYONE (even the King) is Monogamous... then the likely stable alternative is harem-maxxing.
Anyway, here's my prior research into the prevalence of age gape relationships:
https://www.themotte.org/post/120/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/19112?context=8#context
I was actually surprised to find that they were more common (historically and now) than I thought. Husbands being 10+ years older is already about 8% of heterosexual marriages!
And that's not accounting for non-marital ones.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/half-americans-say-they-have-been-10-year-age-gap-relationship
Here's a more recent poll on that point. HALF of Americans say they've been in a 10+ year relationship? I actually find that a bit hard to swallow, but should tell you something nonetheless.
Given the study's design, take it with a whole shaker of salt:
Oh, yeah. Marriage was not all about romance and your true love and soul mate and whatever until relatively recently. Families wanted their daughters to make good marriages, so if that meant an older man or even a widower, then yeah, that's who you are walking down the aisle with.
Also widowers - men getting married a second (or more) time because they need someone to look after their household and young children.
Kipling, in a funny poem, has the distaff version of that; young officers/company men in India flocking around older women (possibly because young men were not encouraged to/permitted to get married, taking native mistresses was frowned upon, so a flirtation or even affair with a married or widowed woman was one of the few sexual outlets, and if sufficiently old no chance of inconvenient and scandalous pregnancy):
My Rival
I go to concert, party, ball —
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right
They burn before her shrine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
And She is forty-nine.
I cannot check my girlish blush,
My color comes and goes;
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to my nose.
But She is white where white should be,
And red where red should shine.
The blush that flies at seventeen
Is fixed at forty-nine.
I wish I had Her constant cheek;
I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
Not quite the proper thing.
I'm very gauche and very shy,
Her jokes aren't in my line;
And, worst of all, I'm seventeen
While She is forty-nine.
The young men come, the young men go
Each pink and white and neat,
She's older than their mothers, but
They grovel at Her feet.
They walk beside Her 'rickshaw wheels —
None ever walk by mine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
And She is forty-nine.
She rides with half a dozen men,
(She calls them "boys" and "mashers")
I trot along the Mall alone;
My prettiest frocks and sashes
Don't help to fill my programme-card,
And vainly I repine
From ten to two A.M. Ah me!
Would I were forty-nine!
She calls me "darling," "pet," and "dear,"
And "sweet retiring maid."
I'm always at the back, I know,
She puts me in the shade.
She introduces me to men,
"Cast" lovers, I opine,
For sixty takes to seventeen,
Nineteen to forty-nine.
But even She must older grow
And end Her dancing days,
She can't go on forever so
At concerts, balls and plays.
One ray of priceless hope I see
Before my footsteps shine;
Just think, that She'll be eighty-one
When I am forty-nine.
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