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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   26041 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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I mean, realistically, this is a very old debate. St. Bernardino (~1400) had writings and sermons criticizing older men marrying very young women. So, I think any explanation that treats it as a novel phenomenon is wrong.

It's more something that will slip in an out of the overton window as cultural and social dynamics shift.

I think there's a reason you're missing in your list, that at least explains why young men would support / go along with prohibitions. Older men taking younger women is fishing in their pond. I think there is some inherent disgust to it, that from an evopsych perspective comes from resource protection.

There is absolutely a social effect with the practice widely tolerated, on the shape of mating and family formation, and whether one finds those effects net ill or not, trying to handwave feelings about it as arbitrary is the most incorrect response.

Given the time period, are we sure st Bernardino was talking about conventional age gap relationships rather than actual child marriage?

I was rabidly against even two or three year age gaps in a relationship...between the ages of 13 and 17, when I felt like every girl I tried to date had an older boyfriend, or had previously had an older boyfriend who took her virginity and then broke her heart and now she wasn't interested in dating/sex anymore.

2 to 3 year age gaps when young are equivalent to 20-30 years when older. A 15 year old dating a 17 year old gets access to a bf with a car and making a McDonalds job. Boys her age do not have that. So now she could do things like go to the movies and he can pay for it. A big difference and lots of independence for that age. A 25 year old dating a 45 year old with savings of a couple millions get access to international travel, gifts, maybe some boat excursions versus her age equivalent taking her out to the local restaurant.

This is extremely relatable, and serves as a good reminder (of what should already be obvious) that encouraging AGRs without restoring functioning sexual morality is worse than nothing.

I think there's a reason you're missing in your list, that at least explains why young men would support / go along with prohibitions. Older men taking younger women is fishing in their pond. I think there is some inherent disgust to it, that from an evopsych perspective comes from resource protection.

That's a good point. I think two factors are at play.

One: in earlier times, an older guy unashamedly, routinely pursuing younger women simply ended up getting beaten up by younger men sooner or later. But in an age of online dating, social atomization and the death of clubbing, this risk disappeared.

Two: few young women are signalling a willingness to settle down with equally young men and thus practice assortative mating. This erodes young men's willingness to mate-guard.

Death of clubbing removed the risk of death of clubbing. How apropos.

I mean, realistically, this is a very old debate. St. Bernardino (~1400) had writings and sermons criticizing older men marrying very young women.

Fascinating, would you mind linking to some of them? The narrative I've heard is that in the past, age-gap relationships were completely normal and unremarkable.

I think it's more that they were comfortable with a certain degree of age gap, but uncomfortable with an excessively large one. It was considered perfectly normal for an 18-year-old woman to marry a 35-year-old man, but abnormal if the man was in his 70s.

The reason was just that there was generally a shortage of eligible men. 18-year-old men were less likely to have a living to support a wife regardless of social class, whereas by 35 they might have a successful career. This wasn't just for artisans and farmers, either; for a younger son of the gentry this career might be as a lawyer, clergyman, or army officer, but the trend of only becoming established later in life was there.

In other words, there were a lot of 18-year-old women who preferred to marry a man who was established and able to easily support them over one who was actually their age. This has the opposite effect for a 70-year-old man who might not be able to support his wife, not least of which because he'll soon be dead.

I doubt they would put it this way, but I would expect that the rule of thumb in the olden days would be that an age gap is appropriate if the man is likely to continue to be able to impregnate his wife through her entire fertile window. Otherwise he's a dog in the manger depriving her of the opportunity to have children with a more suitable man.

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