MarcosZeitola wrote: ↑September 14th, 2022, 11:08 pm
Outcast9428 wrote: ↑September 14th, 2022, 11:00 pm
I mean, I'm 24 years old so, not in my 40s lol. I do agree that a guy in his 40s shouldn't be trying to date a teenage girl. More because the age gap is so extreme, not because I think teenage girls shouldn't date in general. I think its fine if a 15/16 year old girl dates a guy who's like 20. I spoke with a guy from Japan and he told me that's pretty normal in Japan. That a lot of parents are okay with it. The age of consent law in Japan is very specific about parental consent. Basically, you can't try to seduce a random 15 year old girl but if you're in a sincere romantic relationship with parental consent, then its legal.
The anime, Tonikawa Kawaii, features an 18 year old guy and a 16 year old girl getting married and the anime treats it like its a good thing that should happen more often. The guy is the breadwinner in the relationship while the girl is a housewife. They are both very responsible and living on their own. I'm not arguing that this is normal in Japan, I'm just saying people there don't express the same shock and moral outrage at the idea that Americans do.
That being said, for me its not so much that I really want to date a 16 year old girl. At a certain point, there are practical issues with a relationship that has a huge age gap. Its more so that I think its a positive indication of culture when the culture encourages girls of that age to have serious romantic relationships that lead to marriage. It is really disappointing to see so many nations setting 18 as a minimum age for marriage. I feel like 15 is oldest minimum age a nation can justify having for a minimum age of marriage.
You can impose age gap laws if you want to prevent 40 year old dudes from marrying 15 or 14 year olds but don't prohibit teenagers from getting married to each other and building their lives. Both my parents and my ex girlfriend's parents met each other when they were high school age and there is definitely something to the idea that it forges a unique romantic bond having sort of grown up together.
Liberals and feminists don't mention this, but lots of times, arranged marriages in rural villages of countries like Indonesia, India, and Thailand are between teenagers who've known each other all their lives.
If you look at it from a strictly practical point of view, the "age gap" being seen as a bad thing by definition doesn't make sense; that's Westernized thinking. In "the olden days" a man would typically marry only when he would be able to provide for a family. Most teenaged boys are not capable of providing for a family, cannot raise kids and give those kids and their mother a roof over their heads, food, school supplies, clothing and such. But a man who is, say, thirty-five or older, would probably have established himself in his career, would have gained life experience, have some savings and could probably afford a family home.
A sixteen-year-old girl marrying an eighteen year old guy, like in the cartoon you mentioned, seems like a recipe for disaster. Whereas a guy ten or fifteen years older than the girl will likely have much more maturity and financial stability. Many teenage boys are utterly useless, play video games all day, some vape or smoke weed or drink at alarming rates and their discipline is just, sorely lacking. A more sensible thing would be for the younger girl to marry a guy who's at least ten years older than her.
I would personally put the ideal age for a girl to marry no younger than sixteen, because fifteen or fourteen year olds often have hips that are simply too narrow for childbirth; they almost always have get c-sections, after which their ability to carry future children to term is often somewhat limited and their family size will also be smaller. Sixteen and above, from a biological perspective, is ideal. And establishing a family, first and foremost, ought to be the traditionalist man's main objective so all rules regarding marital age and age of consent should be centered around what is wise in that regard, and that regard only.
The issue is that a 35 year old man who marries a 16 year old girl is going to force her to deal with an incredible number of his health issues when she shouldn't be having to worry about that. Some of these include the fact that he's probably going to be dead before the girl is even 60 years old. He could suffer from some form of impotency before the girl is even 30. Not a guarantee obviously but it does happen quite often. Approximately 33% of men experience some form of impotency by the time they are 50 years old.
From a personal, selfish perspective. I don't want to normalize age gaps that large because I don't want to get married that late in life. To me, 35 years old is an outrageously old age to get married. I know its normal nowadays for a lot of people but I strongly feel it is a societal abomination that so many people marry this late in life. If its normal for guy who are way older then girls to be marrying them, it will come alongside the expectation that men wait quite a long time to get married.
Traditionally, it was actually quite possible to be established by the time you were 18 years old. Wouldn't have applied to most men. Most men married in their early to mid 20s. But it was possible. If a guy in his early to mid 20s marries a teenage girl I don't think that's really a problem either. But when you have really extreme age gaps like 35 and 16, I do think that's too much because men's physical health starts declining around the age of 35, it gets faster around 40, and then it really accelerates after 50.
My father is about to turn 60, and I'm already seeing my mom, kind of have to take care of him. Men take care of women when they are newly weds and middle aged. But women are mostly the ones who take care of men as they get old. For one thing, men die younger then women do. Women's physical health maintains itself longer then men's does. When you add that on top of a normal, healthy age gap, a woman may be in the same physical shape as the man was about a decade earlier in his lifetime. I can say that physically, my dad seems like he's becoming an old man whereas my mom seems the same as ever. That's despite the fact that I believe my dad is in better physical shape then most men his age are.
Let's say a woman has her first kid at 18, another kid at 21, another one at 23, and the last one at 25. By the age of 40, she could be having to deal with her husband's physical problems while also dealing with the teenage drama inflicted on her by the 15, 17, and 19 year olds in her household. I can imagine that being a very isolating experience for her and she could end up feeling like the only person in the household equipped to deal with things.
Personally, I don't think people need to have kids immediately as they marry. I think when you first get married, its good to have a few years to get used to living on your own and take care of a house before you take care of a baby. My parents did that, and my sister and her husband did that too. If people get married too late in life, it doesn't give them the opportunity to have that "settling in" period.
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