This weekend a small group of cute blondes visited my church with their family. After the service I went up to the group and ended up chatting with one of them. It’s going fine, she seems receptive, I’m planning on going for a number at the end of the conversation, then I ask, “so, what do you do?”
“I’m in grade 11.”
Her sister then came and told her the family was leaving, she said, “well, I have to go now” with maybe a hint of expectation, and I just fumbled out a “take care” or such; I wasn’t thinking clearly, being taken off guard at how young she was (I thought she was 20ish).
In retrospect, I kinda wish I had asked for the number anyway, she was really cute (beautiful, bright blue eyes) and seemed nice. I likely won’t see this girl again, so this post/question is more for future reference, as it has happened before and took me off guard then as well.
I’ve recently posted on how our society should encourage young marriage; ideologically and spiritually I would have no problems with an age difference (her, who knows?). (As well, legal age is 16 in Canada, so there would be no legal considerations).
But then come the practicalities of the situation, such an age difference may not be approved. When my mother inquired about the girls I was talking to and I told my family what happened, my mother and sister didn’t think it would have been appropriate to ask her out.
I know the mainstream opinion, but I’d like one from those of a more traditionalist bent.
So, my readers, I’d like your opinons/advice from you. If I talk to another girl, she seems like she may be interested, and it turns out she’s in grade 11 or 12, is just letting it go like I did previously for the best, or should I at least ask for coffee? If the latter, what’s the best way to approach it?
For those of you older, married traditionalists who read my blog, how do you think you and other traditionalists you know would react to a Christian man with noble intentions, but nearing age 30, asking your (their) teenage daughter out? Would that be an absolute no go for you and most other traditionalists? If it isn’t, how should he (I) approach it?
I think I know the answer, but even such, I won’t feel like I missed the boat on this one.
Ouch.
I would say that you should take the opportunity. Even if you wait until she reaches majority to make any further moves, you still have a chance. If she is seventeen or eighteen, which I assume eleventh and twelfth graders are, then she is of marriagable age.
The only problem I can see would be her father. You have to abide by his decision if you ask for her hand, and many a father would rather his girl be a harlot than a mother. Sending a single woman to college is tantamount to whoring her out, and paying for the privilege.
The Shadowed Knight
I am 22, and last year married a woman 6 weeks older, so I don’t have personal experience with marrying a younger woman (though I have experience with young marriage in general).
However, last month my 18-year-old sister married a man 13-14 years older than herself. They met for 10 minutes at a Christian lectureship last September, and became friends on Facebook at some later point. I believe they started conversing on that platform in October or so. (They never went on a date, as my family were missionaries in Africa at the time, and they returned to Africa soon after the lectureship.) By January, they had grown to like each other so much that the man asked for and received permission from my father to court her. (But before giving permission, my father did a thorough background check on the young man through several common acquaintances.) They Skyped every day for months (not quite sure if that started before or after their courtship began). In March, her beau asked my father for permission to marry her. My father said he was inclined to do so, but could not in good faith give permission until he had met him in person. My father was going to be in the U.S. for a few weeks in March, so the beau flew to meet us (my father and I) and stay a week while the two attended another lectureship. During this time, my paternal grandparents met the beau too. Two or three days in, my father gave permission for the two to marry, and my sister was proposed to in an international phone call. My father took the ring back to Africa with him. In late April, my sister’s fiance flew to Africa, and they were married 1-2 days later. (They had their engagement pictures taken the day before the wedding.) They are now back in the U.S. for a few months to raise money to go back to Africa to start a library and a Gospel radio work. It should be noted that while both of my parents are conservative, and my mother likes the idea of courtship, etc., my father is not a traditionalist. In fact, I get the impression that it was primarily my sister who wanted to be “courted” and who was so desirous of my father giving his blessing. Anyway, they both seem very happy together right now. Of course, time will be the true test. But that is my story from the perspective of an older brother whose sister got married to a man a good bit older than she. I personally have mixed feelings about the importance of the man being older. I do know that I think that most women should marry young. (One reason being that we want our wives to have many years of fertility ahead of them.) It is likely good from a financial and leadership perspective for the man to be older, but I do not know whether all would have the requisite self-control to wait 10-15 years. That was certainly an issue with me. As the apostle writes, “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” However, if I am ever left a widower, I would likely seek a woman in her late teens or early twenties (unless I am just ancient at that point).
If she’s reached the age of consent, I’d say it’s fine. The problem is whether her family agrees and her family is only likely to agree under two circumstances. They are extremely traditional and sensible, or they are rather low rent and realize their daughter marrying a man with a good job is her best available option. In the latter case she’ll probably have been around the block several times already.
Just as a side note, when it comes to age differences, any difference greater than about 5 years makes people gawp. Not to dissuade you, just telling you that’s what people do.
She likely knew that you were older than her, which is why she stayed to chat. Part of the your appeal is your age; since she’s surrounded by immature high school *boys* at school, it’s refreshing for her to meet a man who knows the score. If anything, she’s fantasized about being with such a man many times over.
You’d be doing her a favour (yes, I’m also Canadian) by getting her number and meeting for coffee. If the chemistry’s there, why let restrictive social norms get in the way of a mutually beneficial partnership? Nobody says you have to marry this girl. Hell, she won’t be thinking of that at all. All she just wants to have some fun… with you. Why deny yourself or her this opportunity? Don’t let the jealousy of others cloud your judgment with their shaming language and force you to deny your sexual urges as a man. She’s legal, and best of all, she was DTF. I say “was” because she likely won’t be as interested the next time you see her, since you didn’t pull the trigger the first time around. Even if the interaction didn’t go anywhere, at least you could honestly say you put forth the effort to find out whether or not it’d work out.
Get the digits the next time around, and your cock will thank you later.
i have a young daughter, so I only have partial insight. Early marriage? Makes perfect sense. A thirty year old relatively squared away professionally? Fine. You want to date my 11th grader? I am afraid my first instinct is to reach for my shotgun. I even accept the theory, but in practice, I would much rather you were courting after high school. 11th grade? Fuck that shit. From the father POV, you damn well better have my daughter on the short list for your bride to be, not someone you want to have a bit of fun with and see how things are going to work out.
Objectively, you should have gotten the digits, if you were interested. But as much as I can sympathize, the girl’s father has a legit case to be on high alert in such a situation.
You don’t know the family’s name or where they live? Surprising, but at any rate, we should move beyond mere theory and talk turkey, here. Don’t hide behind the risk of failure.
If you think that she is worth pursuing in order to learn more about her, then you should definitely consider the possibility of courting her and discuss it with her family. Being of adult age, you can reasonably contact them. Specifically, you should have a sober conversation with her father and see where it might lead. What does he want for her? (A lot of unexpected things happen when we bother to talk to one another.) Ask, calmly but bluntly, if they see the age difference as an insurmountable problem.
Of course, you will likely run into a lot of preconceptions and initial resistance, but that is secondary to your question. You should always act faithfully and put it to others to do their part in turn. Do you want to find out what can happen? Will her father/family object? If so, why? Is your photo on display at the local bank or post office? Don’t assume failure and short-circuit the process before it even begins. Could you run into a social stigma for daring to ask? Absolutely, but are you proposing something–anything indecent? Doesn’t sound like it to me.
I’m not just blowing smoke at you. As a father of two “interesting” girls, I’m not afraid of a young man showing interest; I’m just focused on what he stands for. It’s a semi-wierd application of so-called “game” principles, but I also expect a potential suitor to first look me in the eye with confidence and show me what he’s made of. Then, he might have a chance of dealing with a young woman and her various needs, without drawing her away from the truth and into ruinous sin.
Four years ago when I was a senior in high school the hottest girl in our class starting dating a 29 year old guy from her church. The two of them became the subject of a lot of vicious gossip, from both kids and adults, but I don’t think either of them cared. The two of them got married soon after she graduated, and last I heard they have a couple of kids now.
So yeah, it can be done. There’s nothing stopping you.
I met my wife when I was 27 and she was just shy of 17. Rumors and gossip flourished in this event, but at that point neither one of us were rushing to the altar. I was called a pedophile and she a “stupid little girl.” In the end, a little over a year later, we ended up getting married. We felt it was G-d’s will and despite some hardships in life, it’s worked out rather well. She’s not a typical person of her age and like one commenter mentioned above, she didn’t want any of the boys she was surrounded by. Now me at 30 and she at 20, we have a beautiful daughter and although there are rough spots here and there, they have more to do with the stresses of life and this damnable culture than they do with our age difference. Although I do, on occasion, get referred to as her father….
Always act from your own intentions.
Appropriate? Girls don’t think this conversation is appropriate. Fuck appropriate.
In many states you can marry an underage person with parental permission. I know this because I met a couple where the wife was 17. In their case it was genuinely weird.
You can pull it off if you game the family as well as the girl. You know that saying in pickup that you have to win the friends? Treat her family accordingly.
Likewise, all the “robbing the cradle” accusations are just shit-tests.
When you apply game frames to this, it’s not a sin, just a challenge.
PS-Lovin the stories in these comments. I’m starting to approach the age where I’ve got a couple years on most of my dates, and LOVE it. So much easier. I don’t know why anyone says you have to date people your own age. No one actually does that.
This is a difficult one. I think the fact that she is still in school makes it more difficult to to have sure answer. I just think how her parents would react.
I am engaged to a man just over 20 years my senior. But I am 22 years old.
My father has no problem with it, but of course I am a grown woman and not a school girl.
Would it be better maybe, to talk first with her father so that he knows you are a good man?
If you do not think that is for the best, talk to her again, maybe 1 or 2 times, and if she continues to seem receptive and not just being polite, I think you should express your interest.
No harm in asking her out for coffee or ice cream or something like that. If she or her family objects, then not worth your time.
Though, fundamentally, there’s nothing inherently wrong with early marriage as long as it’s within legal limits, I wouldn’t marry anyone that young. There certainly would be a huge age gap to overcome, which is underscored by life experience.
One lesson I learned many years ago when I was in my single, horny 20s, is that the typical girl, even if “well-educated,” “progressive,” or “open-minded” (insert any other adjectives of your choice), will never go against the wishes of her family, friends/social circle, and community unless she has deep self-knowledge about what she wants and whether her environment actively works against those wishes, not to mention having self-sufficiency to follow her own mind and judgment. Now, if the values she has (usually second-hand) accords with your own, then you’ll have an easier time with her.
The short rule of thumb is, if her family and friends are working against her, then you have to provide something more appealing for her to buck the trend.
Seems like women are hard-wired to follow the herd because going against the herd will not only elicit opprobrium, but excites a deep-seated fear that she’ll be cast out of the herd and on her own. As men, we can deal with this better than women can.
You messed up little brother…. but maybe not. Is there any way to approach the girl’s father?
I’m with Alan K up above.
As a father, when my daughter was 17 she wanted to date a 25(ish) year old man. He was in the Q course, combat vet, and they meet at a bbq her God father was throwing. All important factors to me. Any rate, I meet the man in question, asked a few people about him and said ok all within three days. Tops. Legally I couldn’t have done much any which way as 16 is the age of consent in NC, but it never was about a man’s age or what not and always about him. The man he was at the time, the man he was likely to become.
The 1st girl I dated who was significantly younger then me came about as happenstance. Meet her at a New Year’s eve party in Hawaii. Got to talking, learned she had a master’s degree and figured her to be my age. She was 9 years younger. These things happen. The folks who will get bent around the axle about the age difference will find a 1000’s more reasons to be upset. It’s the kind of folks they are.
Who dares, wins little brother.
Great article, insightful comments.
“my mother and sister didn’t think it would have been appropriate to ask her out”
It is funny how often women think that they are the ones who get to decide what men should want. It is also funny that an older man chasing a younger women is called a dirty old pervert, while an older woman chasing a younger man is called “How Stella got her groove back”. The elephant in the room is that while most men can father children up til about thirty minutes after they are dead(!), fertility in women has a short shelf-life; after forty, they are evolutionarily irrelevant; they don’t being reminded of this.
“Likewise, all the “robbing the cradle” accusations are just sh!t-tests.”
Or more likely, petty jealousy and whining. In most countries, a seventeen-year-old is marriageable and many already have a couple of kids. But Western Society, naturally, knows better.
Seize whatever opportunity presents itself. It is the roads not taken that you will regret on your deathbed.
In my opinion, a man who wants to have a traditional marriage with lots of kids should looks for a young, healthy woman with most or all of her childbearing years ahead of her and has not been ruined by the political indoctrination that is so prevalent in America. This is why it is often necessary to look elsewhere (cue the howling and yowling from up in the cheap seats).
Without realizing this, I lucked out. When I was twenty-three, I met an unspoilt South American nineteen-year-old beauty, and bagged her a year later. More than twenty-seven years later we are still happily married. “Game, set and catch”.
This is always a tricky one. It can be either appropriate or not depending on the situation. The chances of a man around 30 years old being able to find a girl in her late teens that isn’t put off by the age difference are very slim, as women just naturally prefer men within just a few years of their own age, for the most part. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Now, if you find one who isn’t put off by the age difference, the next hurdle is convincing her parents, namely her father, that you are well intentioned. I know that if a 30 year old man expressed interest in a teenage daughter of mine, I would be very, VERY concerned…. unless I knew the man, say from Church or through his family. If I knew his intentions with her were good and honorable, and that she is comfortable with the age difference, then and only then would I be okay with it. Not that there is anything wrong with older men being interested in younger women, it just depends on the man and girl’s particular situation.
I’d worry that a woman in grades 11/12 would suffer our modern culture’s immaturity of extended childhood, but that’s no reason not to ask her on a date.
If she’s amenable, take her for coffee; assess for yourself whether she thinks like an adult. Just be cautious about jumping into things due to infatuation – she could be “playing house”, not taking any of it seriously.
“i have a young daughter, so I only have partial insight. Early marriage? Makes perfect sense. A thirty year old relatively squared away professionally? Fine. You want to date my 11th grader? I am afraid my first instinct is to reach for my shotgun. I even accept the theory, but in practice, I would much rather you were courting after high school. 11th grade? Fuck that shit. ”
Me too. I have several daughters. I’d be pretty worked up about something like this. If the man in question talked to me about it, though, that might make a difference.
For what it’s worth, these are the two big objections I’d see as a father if this situation arose.
1) Your intentions. I would suspect them. I would also think that my daughters are more primed to resist advances from guys their age, since that’s what we’ve raised them to do, than from someone who looks more like an authority figure. I would also think that a younger man is more likely to be cowed by me. Discussing your intentions with me would probably allay both fears.
2) Your value as a mate. I live in a religious subculture where people frequently marry young, so if you aren’t married by age 30, what do you have to offer that’s superior to her marrying some young guy closer to her age where they can build their life together? Specifically, what do you have to offer that offsets whatever defects have made you unmarried so far?
I have 2 teen age daughters… I think they are mature enough to handle most things, but entering a serious relationship with a man 10 years older might backfire for him. Their concept of reality and expectations of life can be jaded. Not that you aren’t an interesting fellow I’m sure, but were you to eventually get married she may always look back wondering what she missed in her early 20s. I’m a proponent of stay-at-home wives, but only by choice, not obligation. After women spit out a few kids and get their shape back they become desirable again by other men. This can be a dangerous season for the husband.
My concern here would be more practically. With her being about 16/17 and you being nigh upon 30, their would be a significant gap of maturity levels, interest in activities, world views, and whatnot. I HIGHLY recommend giving these young ones a pass, not because of their age difference, but because of the maturity cutoff of approximately 25 years. If you’re below 25, date girls below 25 and vice versa.
Early marriage is great. Marriage between a beautiful 18 year old womean and a well-established, honorable 30 year-old man, also great. But the access must be principally through the girl’s parents. They need to be on-board with the courtship. This is where you’re going to run into problems, because less than 1% of all parents are going to think its okey-dokey for their daughter to be courting a 30 year old man. The other problem is less than 2% of all 18 year old girls think that THEY THEMSELVES are ready for serious courtship.
Even if you can find parents and a daughter who are on board in THEORY with young marriage, remnants of the wider, late-marriage culture are going to impinge. No one ever FEELS ready. Usually not the girl. Even less so the parents.
(Try this experiment: There are a few young women (of approximately the age of the girl that FN ran into) that hang around the reactosphere. They seem to be pretty and non-slutty. Try setting them up for a virtual meeting with your marriage age, soon to be quite gainfully employed, son. The difference between theory and practice will be illuminating.)
As a parent of a 19 year-old girl (and many more younger ones), I have to say that when a 30 year-old man asks to court my daughter, the first thing that comes to my mind is how many sluts has he banged. This has, of course, never actually happened, so I’d be quite pleased to have the experience to check it all out.
So I think the primary focus should be on the parents. You’ve gotta convince them, especially the father, that you really are honorable and that you really haven’t banged that many sluts.
I actually have strict and well-reasoned equations on female and male N which I’ve published somewhere…
As someone in a similar position to you FN, I would have talked to the parents. Asking for her number when she is still in HS without getting parental permission might be an example of a short-term gain but a long-term loss. The sole reason to do it is when it isn’t possible to talk to the parents at the time, and getting her number would help contact her.
I’d say go for it, especially if she drops hints of interest. A simple getting-to-know-you date will allow you to get a general read on her personality/maturity to judge whether or not you’re interested in taking it further. Acknowledge the age difference and be up front about what exactly you’re looking for in a potential courtship with an end goal in marriage and children.
If she wants to move forward with you, great. You must also gain the approval of her parents, particularly her father. Be honest about your beliefs and intentions. If she comes from a family with its head on straight (with the husband as the head) and her father gives you his approval to move forward, you’ll be set, even if there is opposition from the wife. Otherwise, expect blowback. But even within the church, blowback can and often will still occur.
At the end of the day, this is your pursuit for a traditional Christian marriage based upon traditional principles. People are going to have things to say about it.
Continue staying true to your principles and don’t sell yourself short.
FN,
The idea of this kind of dating/courtship was not only common less than 100 years ago in the western world, but often preferred by not only the young woman’s family and society as a whole. Back then, people understood that marriages were primarility about the continuing of families through children and granchildren.
A mature man with the ability to earn a living could take care of his wife and their future children. Any young woman’s father understood this and favored this kind of arrangement.
Unfortunately, the push to bring women into the work force changed everything. Young women, and more importantly their mothers who influenced the fathers, saw college and then an early career as being places to meet better men (hypergamy in action).
This meant that marrying off a young daughter before she’s able to sample these “higher and better” pools of available men would be seen as “settling for less.”
Of course, this societal plan hasn’t worked in the way mothers thought it would. Yes, there are a few women over 30 that have been able to ride the carousel and then find family life, but most of these wall-nearing women are still single. This creates another societal dynamic against older man/younger woman relationships.
Beyond just the mothers of these young daughters, women in general feel sympathy and empathy for single women nearing the wall and nearing the end of their fertility. They don’t want older men skipping over these women to marry younger women. They want to societally shame men against this because it keepss those men available to them as future hsubands.
This all goes back to mating competition amongst women. They will always seek to limit the power of young women. The history of raising age of consent laws has shown this to be true. Women know that youth is more attractive than age (see plastic surgeries overloading our society).
What this all means for a man like FN is that he will face a strong headwind if he wants to marry or court a young woman. He and others will be going against the mothers of these young girls and their misapplied hypergamic push for their daughters to ride the carousel in search of landing the big husband fish. FN is also going against western women as a whole who don’t want to compete with young women and want men to only marry career women in their 30s since there are so many of them out there that are still single.
There is one thing that is worth considering though. Charles Murray’s most recent book covered how the white middle class has been lost because their sense of social norms and morality stopped tracking with their wealthier counterparts. In essence, Murray claimed that the wealthy and successful could help the poor more if they “preached what they practiced” in terms of marriage and family.
Look at wealthy and powerful families in the western world. Who do their daughters and sons marry? Usually they marry sons and daughters of other rich and powerful familes. They also usually get married relatively young and stay married.
FN, you have unwittingly hit upon one of the critical societal “norms” that has become a seed of disaster for western culture. You and others should not be seen as “sickos” for seeking a serious relationship with a young woman. Most of the time these early marriages prevent terrible things from happening to young women (series of demeaning sexual relationships that waste their most important assets – youth, fertility, and beauty
I’m told (n/2)+7 is a good age difference guide, where n is your age. Hence, 30 year-old man marries 22 year-old woman.
No, that’s High School and we live in the world we live in. Which is always imperfect.
Young marriage was the norm back when life expectancy was less than 40. Even then, there were those who stated that men should put off marriage while women should marry as soon as possible. A 17 year old girl is about as mature as she is going to get, and a 20 year old male is dumber than a box of rocks nowadays. Next time, go for the number.
And of course your mother and sister didn’t like it. Why are you discussing females and dating with them? That’s the Female Imperative at work, they don’t want you dating/marrying a woman who will make them look bad by either (1) being more attractive than they are or (2) being younger than they are. Women don’t like females who fall into either of those groups.
What does any man have in common with a girl? That whole line of reasoning escapes me. Does she hunt, fish and shoot? Repair cars, power-lift and do strongman? Can she stack a door, repair a roof and run a still?
I have all the masculine traits covered and then some. What I like about having women in my life is someone who covers the feminine. We don’t need to have much in common at all.
That what do you have in common just screams beta and FI to me
Long time lurker here. If a man your age came near my daughters, I would reach for my gun. So would my husband. If one of my daughters fell in love with you, I would do everything in my power to make her wait before she took a step into a marriage she would probably come to regret. I would question why an older man interested in marriage and children was unmarried in the first place. You might have a good reason, but my second question would be why you wanted to build a life with someone so immature compared to you. My daughters (2) are good girls with smart heads on their shoulders, but they belong with young people, not people heading into middle age.
If they insisted on pursuing a romance with a much older man, I would calmly point out that their friends and their husband’s friends will not mix. They will be the focus of evil gossip, with people speculating on what their relationships were like with their father, that drove them into the arms of an older man (“daddy issues”). I would tell them that one day they will be left widows in the prime of their lives, or they will find themselves playing nursemaid to an old man. The life I want for them is to find good men their own age so that they can build a life together, step by step, taking the same milestones together and being a joy for one another in their old age.
Perhaps an older man interested in marriage and children believes in it so much that he is willing to wait until he is financially stable and has a home for his wife (and future kids) before he takes one. Gossips will generally gossip about you no matter what. Approaching 30 is not that close to middle age.
Part of the joy of marriage is building a life together. The scarce times early on are the ones you look back on most fondly. Girls do not need to marry men who are already financially set up. It’s good for them to have to wait for things. They need to marry good, steady men who are on their way.
Long-time lurker here.
Go for it, Free Northerner. Use wisdom (approach her father being intentional, make certain of her maturity level), but it would be better to go for her than to play “What if…” games with yourself.
I’ve been to Ukraine to look for a wife (I’ve given up on American women, by and large) and I met a very cute 19-yr old brunette in Kharkiv who had no problems with me being +10 years older than her. I almost went out with her, but I chickened out, and part of me still regrets it.
Ignore the gossips (isn’t that a sin?), and may God be with you, brother.
If a Christian man with noble intentions came to me about my over-the-age-of-consent daughter, I’d carefully weigh how Christian and noble he actually is before approving:
For example, a man who writes about how marital rape is impossible is not very likely to care about what she wants, or to love her and her needs as much as himself and his needs.
A man who worries on his blog that a woman may lie to him about the number of sex partners she had may, depending on the circumstances, not be a follower of a Jesus who makes new and forgets the past. Even if she sins in a non-sexual way, he may hold more grudges that a follower of Jesus would.
I was contemplating not commenting, but I can (sort of) sympathize with the situation. I would have gotten the number and how you handled it from there could play out in many different scenarios. My wife was 16 and me 19 when we met. We dated for a year and a half before we set the date for a couple of months after she turned 18. Her Dad is clueless, so not much of a sell on my part since I was already wiser than him. (not to toot my horn, just an observation) Mom, on the other hand, fought it because she wanted her daughter to be independent – get her degree before even contemplating marriage, said I would have her barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, etc – so I think one or both of the parents will have a problem with it.
And if this girl would eventually qualify as the one, then you just started out the marriage with you and her alienated from her family.
Here’s the rub – as a red pill Dad, I know what is out there. The Roissy-ites, the cultural speller mentality, the PUA wanna-bes, the Tinder-app riders, the simpletons, the rednecks, the neckbeards and basement dwellers accumulate to fill the void that is our population. Men who are passively looking for a wife while being ok with using up the use-up-able, are rampant. And a significantly older guy dating my 16 year old daughter would have serious problems from me.
the spousal unit and myself make 23 years this year.
I think your case, FN, is harder than the abstract one because you’re essentially a stranger. Is a 30-year-old man courting a 17-year-old woman intrinsically wrong? I dont think so. Might it even be acceptable in 2014 America/Canada under the right circumstances? Yeah, maybe. If you already knew her family well, and your ideas about courtship were (in the technical sense) common knowledge, and they were on board with them, and *that* were common knowledge, I’d say go for it. But if you dont even know her last name, well…unless your church is just chock full of traditionalists to the point where that’s all they’d expect to meet, I think you can expect a lot of (quite justified) resistance on this point.
There seems to be a lot of juvenile shaming here from Roseanne and antho.
They don’t seem to realise that one reason a man may seek a younger woman is because the women his age put off marriage too late and, therefore, indicated that marriage was not their number one priority.
Rj is correct. The older woman are scared. They don’t want men to be content and successful. I am a Canadian as well and I plan to find my wife from among the younger cohorts of women as well. Never allow the jealousies of others to cloud your sound judgement.
Some of these folks show just how little tradition there is in our churches and culture.
Roseanne, an older man interested in family may be unmarried because almost half of women are no longer eligible for marriage by the end of high school, and almost four fifths by the end of college. By making your daughters to wait and discouraging a marriage, you run the risk of them joining the four in five women instead of joining with a good man.
A young woman does not mature until she has been through difficulty and strife. At the age of sixteen to eighteen, she has reached her adult maturity. Men do not reach theirs until twenty six to twenty eight. Men do not care about her maturity. That will come with children and struggle, when they support each other and grow together.
I agree that marriage in youth is best, but it is far more important for women than men, as long as the man can remain virtuous. An older man married to a younger women has been acceptable for more centuries than years that it has not. The opposition to youthful marriage is a recent innovation of secular culture.
Antho, you do not have to worry about any sort of noble intentioned man coming to court your daughter. I know enough after that little comment to know that your daughter is not the kind of woman sought by the men here. Supremacy of women and a cold, unfeeling marriage to a denying, manipulator is not their goal.
Forgiveness does not absolve your daughter from the consequences of her fornication. She may still find fellowship with her brothers and sisters in Christ, but that does not make her a candidate for marriage. She must accept that she has ruined herself, and lower her sights accordingly.
The Shadowed Knight
Some of these folks show just how little tradition there is in our churches and culture.
Here, here. Ton has the heart of it.
The Shadowed Knight
Thanks little brother. I actually started writing on my blog
Odd isn’t it? Me the unapologetic sinner, fornicator extraordinaire routinely being on the side of actual tradition? Of protecting young girls in an actual marriage to an actual Godly young man like Free…. what is the world coming to?
The 1st thing I thought about Free and the 17 year old girl is, she is safe with him, now and into the future. Which is really the last thing most Christians want
ARH, I want to point out something that you said. I see this often enough that is has come to grate on me.
If you already knew her family well, and your ideas about courtship were (in the technical sense) common knowledge, and they were on board with them, and *that* were common knowledge, I’d say go for it.
The reactionary and traditionalist community has to get together. How many of you have children who are of an age to get married? Daughters especially, because of the prevalence of single men around here, but sons, too. Why are you not talking amongst one another to make matches?
I see a lot of talk. I see damn little action. What is going on? Is it so hard to invite a man to get a sense for who he is? Is everyone that reluctant to put up? Have a traditionalist hunting retreat, where you can get together and take a look at potential matches, get to know each other.
The Shadowed Knight
Just because it violates “liberal” orthodoxy, I’ll say yes!!!!!!!
For those arguing that she is as about as mature as she is going to get, I disagree. Yes, in times past girls were women at that age and married and raising children. But these days these girls are still in high school around other immature people, and maturity is delayed.
With that said, I do not believe she is too young or immature for a 30 year old man to marry. You grow when you marry, you grow when you become a mother, and taste real life. This could be a beautiful thing for the both of them, God willing.
Roseanne, I believe your comment to be very short sighted, with all due respect. I assume you are Christian, and we Christians must not care so much for gossip, instead we must seek the Kingdom of God. So if people gossip and we care, that means we are putting our faith in idle talk, and not our Faith in the Lord.
Early widower? That is in God’s hands. A man or woman can die any time, even in young age, God forbid. The early widower argument is not a strong or rational one. It is a worldly argument, lacking in Faith.
About the woman being widowed young… it doesn’t always happen that the oldest go first. For example, my Dad was 9 years older than my Mom, and she died 4 years before he did. There are no guarantees there. Is it more likely that she would be widowed? Yes it is. But it’s not a given.
To FN and any older man interested in marrying a younger woman… I suggest that you imagine that you are the father of a teenage girl. As her father, you naturally want to look out for her, to protect her. Imagine that you see a man who is obviously a decade older than her (or more) approach her, starts chatting her up, and then apears to be asking her for her number or out on a date. You don’t know this guy from Adam. He could be a virtuou marriage minded man with the utmost of honorable intentions… or he could be a PUA type who is looking for an easy victim (I.e. young and naive) for his next pump-n-dump. Since you don’t know this guy, and your daughter doesn’t appear to either, you really don’t know which type of guy he is. What would go through your mind? How would you want this guy to approach the situation if he is the right kind of guy? What would he have to do (not merely say, but DO) to prove himself to you as her father? Think long and hard about this, and that will tell you what you should do next time this kind of scenario happens with you. And don’t think you would automatically be okay with it, or even encourage it. Like I said, my Dad was 9 years older than my Mom, but he would have absolutely blown a gasket if that happened with me at that age. It’s a whole different ballgame when it’s your own daughter.
I’ll try to be brief. I won’t succeed.
1. I sometimes tease my daughter that I’ll sell her to a Saudi prince, so I need her to study and keep fit so I can get back my investment, but that’s all bluff. What I really want is a guy who will be a good contributor of excellent grandchildren, and I expect my daughter to participate fully in that selection process. That includes every part of dating, courting, and marriage proposals. She asks my opinion of guys. Any guy asking for my approval will be told to focus on my daughter. She will get my opinion when she begins to think a guy’s worth my time.
2. I think my daughter should marry young, even during college, but her brain’s big enough that it’s worth the cash to send her somewhere she can fill it with useful wisdom, so I’m paying for that, whether she has a husband or not. In that context, your age may impinge on her further education. If you want her to stop attending her brain so she can spawn your kids, sorry, dude, that ain’t happening: I’m on the high’investment side of the r-K theory, and my investment ain’t finished. So, you may be looking at a five year wait. You up for that?
3. If you think well enough of the girl from one conversation, then do the work to find her. This is the 21st century: do the search. Check her parents background. Find out about her family. If you’re not up for the homework, then you’re just a player, anyway. As I’m sure you know, not all women are equivalent. If this one’s worth the effort, make the effort.
4. If you’re nearly 30 and you’re not married, you have indeed delayed to the point of eliciting suspicion. I was married by 23 because I chose to be married by 23. I didn’t have a pile of cash, but I was professionally employed. I was a father by 25. My daughter graduated high school this week, and despite a layoff five years back, I’ve got the cash for the first year of a private university after starting a business. On top of all that, I come from several generations of successful men and women. It takes generations of breeding and capital to produce a woman like my daughter. That’s the kind of standard I expect from my daughter’s suiters, and she’s already better prepared for idiots than I was at her age.
5. Despite all the religious opinions men espouse, most fathers who give any serious consideration to their daughters’ future are pragmatists. Declaring your love for your god won’t impress most fathers. I want to know what you’ll do in that moment when you cry out, “Father, why have you foresaken me?” Will you buckle under the load of life’s challenge, or live despite everything this universe throws at you? There is nothing you can SAY that will alter my opinion of you. There are things you can do that may cause me to conclude you’re worth more than the constituent chemicals left in your corpse when you’re dead. So, to begin, you’ve already failed the first test: you fled when faced with a reality you did not expect, the girl’s age. You failed again when she walked away and you didn’t chase. You failed once more when you didn’t inquire about her family among church members. You failed when you didn’t have sufficient conviction to personally repent your error and instead came here for advice about the obvious. Finally, and this one’s outright damning, if you’re interested in marrying, that should be well known among every leader in your church, and those men and women who can help you discern a good match should be your allies. If they’re not, you’re at the wrong church.
When I decided it was time to marry, everybody in my social circle knew it. Every girl I dated knew she was being interviewed. I never before dated so many women as when my marriage intentions were clear. Women who were thinking the same as I contacted me for dates. When I made my choice, every woman around me suddenly became deadly serious about the filtering out players once they realized they’d missed a shot at one serious guy willing to commit for LIFE. If you’re not projecting that seriousness, you’re still a player. Players might date my daughter, but she’s not offering more than platonic companionship for an afternoon or evening to such boys, and you’ll be lucky if you get that. You needn’t worry about me. You’re already sunk before you ask for a phone number. She’ll respond by asking for yours, instead. Will you be ready when she calls your bluff?
So be honest with yourself and us: you’re still playing the field, trolling the water for phone numbers, and this post is bullshit. Get back to us when you’re ready for marriage and we can talk about how to find righteous women.
Hi FN,
I saw that you tagged me on Twitter to respond to this post; I haven’t read all the comments yet, so forgive me if I repeat what someone else has already said.
I asked my husband for his opinion on this post, and asked him to imagine if this had been one of our daughters, and to his mind, the age gap wouldn’t be a problem. HOWEVER, the idea of a man of 30 who is unknown to us asking out our teenaged daughter would be a problem. We would want to know this man a little first, get a chance to observe his character and make sure he’s aboveboard. We would not want him to take our daughter out alone, or even have her phone number, until we’d had a little time to learn more about him. The age would not have been the problem, but your status as a stranger would have been, and asking for our underaged daughter’s number without speaking to her father first would have been a major strike against you in our book.
However, if you were a man we knew, that would change everything. We have no problem with the idea of our daughters marrying young and don’t mind the idea of them marrying someone older than they are.
That’s just our personal take on things, though. Other parents may feel differently.
Ted Colt, if you are serious about this:
So, you may be looking at a five year wait. You up for that?
just to participate in the scam that is the modern schooling system, there is another number five you should know: four in five. That is the number of women who gave up their virginity before graduation. Are you sure that you want to send your daughter into that, so that she can be indoctrinated by leftist ideologues?
If you want her to have a degree, then she can do online classes. If you want her to learn, bring her to the library, not college. Either way, marriage does not prevent future learning.
Before you come back with My Daughter Is Not Like That, I submit that All Women Are Like That. The good intentions of a woman are worth their weight in gold, just like their vows. Chances are that no matter what she says to you, she will end up with her ankles behind her ears, clawing at the back of her new lover. All it takes is a few minutes and She Will Be Like That, even if it is just long enough to ruin herself.
So, no, I would not be up for that. At twenty four, she is rapidly approaching her sell by date, all for a useless piece of paper to satisfy you. Why wait, when I could spend that time looking for a younger woman with smarter parents, and be married years before your daughter graduates? Why would I take on years of school debt that merely served to assuage your vanity when I could spend that on my children?
SSM,
However, if you were a man we knew, that would change everything. We have no problem with the idea of our daughters marrying young and don’t mind the idea of them marrying someone older than they are.
A perceptive man might point out that the people who have sons and daughters and the singles looking for a spouse should get together. A hunting weekend in the Northwest might be a good way to get to know each other and make personal connections. You as a community need to get to know each other better. This sort of thing should be organized.
The Shadowed Knight
Logically, girls who are just recently fertile, should marry men who have just recently demonstrated their future provider capacity by attaining a decent job and starting to accumulate assets.
However, her father might well doubt the likelihood of that outcome.
There are lots of male Neoreactionaries strutting their stuff online which is fine. But there are also lurking female Neoreactionaries out there. I see them on Twitter and on comments. NRx ladies, you need to step up to the plate and begin building some sort of matchmaking infrastructure for NRx. This is your domain, and you are far better at measuring these things than your average NRx male. Quality NRx men need quality NRx women, and vice versa.
I’m thinking there’s some sort of disconnect from the fathers here who believe that men are intentionally delaying until 30 years of age or so.
Most men nowadays are indoctrinated into the cult of nice (e.g. churchianity) especially if they grew up in the church.
Most of these men will fail to self actualize and become men, and the men that do are like FN, Donal, Chad, and others. I shudder to what I would look like if I didn’t find the Christian manosphere because I would still be wallowing in a pit with no clue what was going on.
We were told specifically to focus on careers, which doesn’t mean just college for some of us but up through graduate/doctoral level studies. We were told things just happen. We were told to be nice.
Obviously, some of the social maladjustment is the fault of many men for indulging in electronics rather than learning social skills, but most of the such men never had fathers that taught them how to deal with women. I suppose it’s not quite an excuse, but it does explain much of what is happening.
Have any of you fathers ever looked around and seen what kind of crop of men are being raised by most churches and society? Even a simple majority are in decent shape by 30 to be married is amazing with how feminized the culture is.
All of the studies indicate that men are more marriage minded than women in their 20s. It is the women that are delaying marriage for their careers, and travels, and whatever. I expect the age of first marriage to continue to rise for men until it is potentially up in the early if not mid 30s.
That is what is now normal. Sadly.
The responses to this post are fascinating. What do we really believe? What do we do if we’re convinced, but others aren’t?
Thoughts for now:
FN: I feel ya dude. Read the comments so far:
1)”Go for it.”
2)”Stay away from my daughter, she should be marrying younger guys.”
3)”Man up ya wimp, everyone ought to know you’re on the marriage prowl.”
4)”We’d like to know you first.”
One analogy that I reach for constantly these days is that in some ways, God:human :: man : woman. This is particularly useful when I try and contemplate how God sees me; if I have a complaint about women, God probably has it about me; if I have a complaint about God, women probably have it about me.
And the oft-said complaint about women I find to be true of the commenters: the people want fried ice.
My snarky takedowns:
1)”Go for it.” (Actually I have no takedown of this, though it’s in error to ignore the value of social connections in the church that might be threatened by this. We are commanded to marry; we are also commanded to live in unity and love with other Christians.)
2)”Stay away from my daughter, she should be marrying younger guys(you creep).” (LOLOLOLOLOL where were you when I was 23? Protip: she is only able to marry younger guys when she is younger. Marry young, marry when professionally settled, marry the same age: PICK TWO. Unless, perhaps, your daughter is just that gorgeous, which she very well may be. Maybe I’m just batting out of my league. But I don’t think so.)
3)”Man up ya wimp, everyone ought to know you’re on the marriage prowl.” (There is something to this, but it takes some balls, especially given what those around here know about the effect on female libido of commitment-seeking guys.)
4)”We’d like to know you first.” (Understandable, but whew we have set up some killer barriers here. Anyone who doesn’t know me yet is someone I don’t know well enough to know that they won’t freak out when 27-yr-old me (first flag) talks to them about courting (Second flag: “‘Courting?’ What, is he from the 1850’s?” Chad is my hero for having this talk) their 19-yr-old daughter.)
And yet, despite my comments, I see reason behind all of these:
1)Yeah man, go for it. We’ve done the math. People are worried about skeezy guys; you are better informed about your own character and know that you are not a skeezy guy.
2)I have a (18? 19? I forget)-yr-old sister. I would put any 30-yr-old dating her through the ringer (Although to be fair, I’d put a guy any age through the ringer.).
3)Actually I can’t really empathise with this, but whatever.
4)Yeah, I get it.
While I think all this is interesting for study, I don’t think it should be taken that seriously. As Ted Colt says, most people are pragmatists. As I say, most people don’t predict their own behavior that well. Be the cool guy who’s well-put-together, is optimistic, is not embarrassed to be seen with a woman significantly younger, and can talk about it calmly*, and problems melt away.
The main problem, I think, is the optimism and the confidence. You can’t (and probably shouldn’t) fake those; you have to really feel them. The best method for this, I am convinced, is faith. Faith gives you a reason for general optimism; faith and righteousness bring confidence.
*Take a page from the book of neoreaction: You’re allowed to have “crazy” opinions if you don’t back down from them and bring the real deal otherwise. Just as neoreaction doesn’t trigger the same defenses because we watch (or even better: disdain) TED talks and get our punctuation right, a 30-yr-old hitting on your 19-yr-old daughter loses his “creepiness” when he deftly apologizes if you were offended and you see him later at a church gathering keeping everyone laughing.
The best part of all this is the replies. That is where you can learn how you are viewed. I see an awful lot of “tradition for you, but not for me or mine.” It is fine to have men act out all the traditional masculine marriage roles and tasks, but ask that women take their traditional feminine place and all the parents are suddenly staunch progressives.
“Not my little girl, no sir; she is going to college to get some sexual experience, financial insolvency, and immoral indoctrination. Not marriage, that is for losers. Unless you are not married, then you are also a loser. Do not get uppity; you can have her after she is used up and worn out. ”
The Shadowed Knight
I wanted to write a bit more about this, because I think there is a staggeringly low level of bullshit going on here. I don’t think anyone is writing dishonestly. We’re really down to brass tacks—we have met the enemy and he is us.
I also wanted to clarify that I don’t think the commenters individually want fried ice. Any of the attaboys/stay-aways/man-ups are internally consistent by themselves. But combine all the reasonable, rational responses and you have lunacy.
But the big thing I’m drawing from this (or rather, having reinforced) is this: her parents are not your friends. They probably would be if they were your age and you weren’t going after their daughter. But they’re not, and you are. And besides, this isn’t super-special Evil that’s driving this, it’s just good parenting. Which makes it worse, because you can’t even cry repentance.
Here is the only answer that will work and actually be implemented: you, as a guy, have to completely and utterly kick butt. Average is over. The myriad forces conspiring to stop you from marrying well are legion, and some of them are just unfortunately-placed or unfortunately-interacting good forces. You have to compensate for all of them. You have to be more outwardly righteous than the Churchians and more exciting than the Rockbanddrummers of the world. No one will help you with this and many will hinder, and when you succeed, you are not allowed to talk about it, except to God. But take heart: if you consecrate your efforts to the Lord, it will work out in the end as promised, even if you fail in this life.
I don’t want my girls delaying marriage or shunning good men. I want them to marry well, at the right time. My nephew of 23 married a girl of 21 a couple of years back. She is pretty, smart and very devout. I know his parents, who are liberals, counseled him not to marry her “just for sex” because she said No until marriage, but she told him it was all or nothing and he said all. She brought him to Christ. He didn’t bring a house with him, just a good heart. They are very happy and are going step by step into married life together with the help of both sets of parents. That’s what I want for my girls.
I don’t want to offend, but you asked a plain question, so I am answering it plainly. A girl of 16 or 17 has too much growing up to do to have anything in common with a man of 30 apart from sex. Those of you who say girls stop maturing haven’t been around enough young women, because there is a big difference between even an 18 year old and a 21 year old.
@ Rosanne
Here’s my question back to you:
What does having anything in common have to do with anything? I see that nowhere in the Scriptures aside from commonalities in faith which is obvious in the men and women we are talking about.
Having something “in common” is a feminist shaming mindset, and has nothing to do with the Scriptures at all. I would suggest eradicating such mindsets from your head and instead go on what the Scriptures state. A man and a woman with a large age difference can still build a life together….. but it just doesn’t look like you would want it to.
If you’re examining marriage from a Scriptural point of view then generally speaking age differences are a good thing. Wives who are less “experienced” than their husbands tend to have an easier time respecting their husbands, and husbands that have wives that are “vulnerable” will much more readily want to love them as they love themselves.
Obviously, Christians are not about making easy, but that is one way in which alignment of practicality is good in Biblical marriage. There is a reason why there are many younger women “prefer older men.”
Personally, I would not pursue any girl under 20 unless it was really obvious there was mutual attraction and chemistry and I knew the parents but that’s my own limits. I much prefer women who are 22-24 range, but I accept that there will be less virgins in that range because of the statistics of what TSK said earlier: 4/5 of women lose their virginity by the end of college/univ.
Scripturally there is nothing that says a man and wife can’t have anything in common either. I am not arguing that my children should not get married. The question was whether a girl in high school is too young for a man nearing 30. Yes she is.
A pretty young woman with a good heart and a sensible head on her shoulders will find many good men around her own age when the right time comes or if she wanted to marry someone older, then as parents we would support her. If she was 21 or 22 and she wanted to marry a man of 30 that would be completely different than if she was 16 or 17 and a much older man came calling.
Thank you for the conversation and God bless. I will go back to lurking.
@ Roseanne
Then why would you even ask the question if you already had your mind made up if there is no Scriptural support either way?
If you had preferences that you were going to stand by then just say so. What you just did is passive-aggressive dishonesty.
This is why Christians get a bad rap. They fail to be honest about their intentions and opinions. Don’t like something personally? That’s fine. But don’t try to dress it up with fluffiness like marriage should be “at the right time.”
@ Roseanne,
Agreed that teenage girls simply aren’t mature enough to handle being married at all, let alone to a man far more mature than they are. Probably the only exceptions would be girls who were homeschooled and spent their lives attending latin masses and come from extremely traditional families. Once apon a time when children did mature very well by that age and delayed adolescence as we see it today didn’t exist, then this conversation wouldn’t even be necessary. But teenagers these days simply aren’t ready for marriage. I know of a handful of people that have married before turning 20, and every single one of them is either divorced now or on the rocks headed for divorce. Early 20’s, after getting a wake-up call of what life is like (this doesn’t apply to college students living in dorms on government loans, who are just as clueless and immature as highschoolers about the trials of life) is more likely to find girls who could handle marriage (I know, they might not want marriage, but point is, they could handle it better than someone who is younger). A girl 20 years old and a man 30 years old? Nothing wrong or improper about that at all.
@ DS,
When you say women “prefer older men”, you overestimate how much older women prefer them. There are some women, albeit a very small amount, who prefer large age gaps like the one being discussed here. But not very many. Nearly every woman prefers older men, yes. But the vast majority prefer men no more than 3 or 4 years older, and will primarily look for men in that range. This is especially true of very young women. Many women will consider men older than that, but will oftentimes struggle with the decision to do so. For example, my senior year in high school, a girl in my class found out that a man she had just started dating was 24 years old, and was suddenly very unsure about continuing to see him, because she wasn’t comfortable with the age difference. She asked our teacher, who was a man that same age, what he thought, and he told her that he agreed that it was too much difference for her age, along with many people in class, boys and girls alike, which was exactly the answer she wanted because it confirmed her concerns. I also had developed a huge crush on this very teacher, but dismissed the idea of even the possibility of anything ever happening there because of the 6 year difference, though I continued to crush on him that year. For most girls, the age difference becomes less of an issue a bit later on.
Thank y’all for the comments. Seems like the general consensus is I should have tried for it, while also making sure to talk with the father, getting to know the parents, and assure that he’s on board. Makes sense; next time I’ll go for it.
For the parents who responded; were it my daughter I would be wary as well. I can understand the difference between ideological agreement and actually allowing it when it comes to it.
As for things in common: I have few thing in common with any women, if i use that as a basis I’ll never get married.
As for immaturity, that’s what courting/dating is for, to find things like that out. It’s not like being 25 is any indication of maturity anymore.
@ Alan: Yeah, they were just visiting my church for a baby dedication for a couple in my church I don’t know. She told me they went to a reformed church but I didn’t catch which one.
@ Lesser Bull & Roseanne & Ted Colt: The reason I’ve been unable to have a family is my crippling social awkwardness, but it has been improving immeasurably over the last decade. Was I where I was now when I was 20, I would have easily been married in college, but as my social skills have been improving, I’ve been meeting fewer eligible women. Most of my married friends did so with someone they met in college; it’s too bad I was too socially awkward to succeed when I had plenty of opportunities.
I’ve written elsewhere what I have to offer.
http://freenortherner.com/2013/11/03/the-list-and-my-list/
@ Nick: Well, not banging sluts is one area in which I’m doing well.
@ Roseanne: I agree with you about building a life together, but sadly it’s one of those things I’m going to miss. For me, It would be easier to integrate a young woman into my life than to try to mesh my life with another established woman. As for the opinions of others, I’d accept for a girl I loved.
@ Ted Colt: I’m serious about marrying, but you have brought up some points I’ll chew over.
@ SSM & ARH: Yea, the difference between knowing her parents and not is probably an important one.
@ Deep Strength: I would shudder too of where I would be If it wasn’t for the manosphere.
Roseanne, no, she is not too young. That belief is a secular belief, that is unique to this specific time. A hundred years ago, that pretty blonde that FN met would have been proud to have caught him. As I mentioned earlier, the practice has been acceptable for more centuries than years it has not.
I have been around plenty of young women. Sixteen year olds: silly and flighty. Eighteen year olds: silly and flighty. Twenty year olds: silly and flighty. Etcetera. By the time women mature, it is usually after they have done something to ruin themselves for marriage. It is better that she matures raising her husband’s children than crying about her latest sexual mistake.
The Shadowed Knight
@ FBNF
You’re talking only from your own experience. There are many cultures such as those in latin america where a young but large 10+ year age gap is not uncommon and is not socially frowned upon.
This also goes back to another point. Women actually look to society for what they find acceptable or not. This is the herd mentality. It’s no surprise that the girls and boys would go along with popular opinion in the culture. I place no stock in that.
When men mature they care less about what others think of them, and are more likely to take risks.This is part of the reason why women are attracted to men in the first place. Men need to be “independent” and “sufficient” in order to be able to protect and care for a family. This is what the power/status/etc. attractive vectors measure.
You can see this is prevalent in the differing attitudes between men and women here, and it is reflected in greater society. The only men who bridge this gap are current fathers, and even they have fallen prey to feminist society herd think.
Even if your thoughts here were true, I doubt most men including myself would care. That may sound harsh, but it is not intended as such. That’s the mentality we have to have in order to search and find a wife.
FN did my reply to FBNF disappear or is it stuck in spam?
Just asking, what about a 14 year old? There’s really not that much difference, and some 14 year olds look like their 18 anyway.
I think the way the MMP works in most of today’s conservative churches is a lot different from what one would think from red-pill blogs. The assumption tends to be that couples should meet in Young Life, college Christian groups, and the like. If you’re a 30-year-old single man, thus you have failed to meet the expectation, and you’re supposed to marry a 30-year-old woman who is thought to be your equal. Chances are, they would say you weren’t “raised right” or else you would already be married.
This system is fairly well enforced, so the coupling of a younger woman and somewhat older man — which makes sense to red-pillers — becomes seen as strange. Church ladies “feel” that these couples are doing something wrong, so they must invent some rationalizations for their rules.
@Just Asking
Unfortunately men who do marry girls at that age is considered a pedophile even if the clinical definition is different. Not long ago in my country a man was arrested for marrying a 12 year old.
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/lebanese-student-charged-after-marrying-12yearold-girl/story-e6frg6nf-1226820280226
Which in history and still in some cultures around the world aided by the maturing forces of culture would be considered a young woman. Puberty marked this transition. Though in nordic societies due to being more K-selected marry when they could afford it historically speaking at age 15.
Just for point of interest:
See “For reconstitutionorse, Till Death Us Do Part” by Kemkes-Grottenthaler A. Available on google. Table 2 shows the mean marital age gap for a village in Germany hovered around 3-4 years.
From the abstract: “Based on a set of 2,371 family related entries dating from 1688 to 1921, the current study tried to verify longevity differentials due to interspousal age difference. For the purpose of the analysis, age-heterogamy was operationalized in terms of sample-specific marital age gap (3.2 years) with a standard deviation of 6.1 years. Based on this, five marriage groups were isolated. Female mean age at marriage experienced a slight increase over time, while the male mean at marriage decreased. This led to an appreciable narrowing of the spousal age gap. Age-homogamous unions were most prevalent in the lower socio-economic class (day-laborers, industrial workers) (p<0.01). "
The tables illustrate the gaps depending on male job. The higher the economic class, the higher the age gap. Also men on their second marriage. Not so much for commoners.
E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield's "English population history from family reconstitution: summary results 1600-1799" show that the mean age gap was 6.4 years in 1600 and fell to 4.8 over the three half centuries.
Most interesting are the ages of first marriage documented in both articles. For women it was in the mid-twenties. I thought it would be much younger.
An alpha male apologizes to no one over age difference.
Once she’s 18, you’re in the clear.
I’ve dated women 15 years younger than me (22 when I was 37). I felt a bit weird about it at first, but I got over it quick.
@ DS: Your post went into spam for some reason, I pulled it ouy.
@ Just Asking: 14 is against the law. That settles that question.
@ DS,
This isn’t Latin American girls and/or culture we’re dealing with, it’s North America for the most part. You may not like what I said about girls’ preferences, but that doesn’t make them any less real. Whether they are influenced by society or ingrained in us from birth is irrelevant. (Besides, just because some cultures are more accepting of it than ours is doesn’t automatically mean the girls themselves would choose much older men over those close to their own age, as their FIRST choice. Maybe they would, but I doubt it). Also, you’ve said yourself on another post that it’s completely OK for everyone to have their own preferences, and that goes for everyone, even if their preferences aren’t in alignment with yours.
If you, and the other guys here seeking younger wives, expect to catch one, then you really need to start caring about that. Not in a discouraging kind of way, but in a strategic kind of way. The problem ya’ll don’t want to address is that you aren’t just facing the hurdle of society and a girl’s father… you are also facing the hurdle of her own desires, which more than likely don’t include men of a certain age. Meaning, you will need to find a way to get past that hurdle if you expect to catch a much younger woman. And ignoring that just because you don’t want it to be true will prevent you from succeeding, plain and simple. I’m not trying to discourage anyone from seeking a much younger woman. I’m trying to point out a relevant piece of information so that you can figure out some way around it.
@ FBNF
“Whether they are influenced by society or ingrained in us from birth is irrelevant.”
Incorrect. Learned behaviors can be unlearned. That’s the point I’m making, and one of the great capacities of human beings. To be able to change. Free will. To rise above our instincts.
We become conditioned to the society that we are in. However, what most people don’t do is critically think and compare the finers points of each, and contrast them against the Scriptures. In the world and not of the world and all of that. Women more easily fall prey to society standards because of the strong desire to conform.
In general, people just want to think what they think is right, and they are often dishonest or passive aggressive about it like Roseanne. Disappointing but not exactly unexpected with how much feminism has been ingrained into society. However, extremely terrible from a Christian point of view.
Additionally, men are highly focused on counting the cost (unless they’re emotional about it which I don’t see to be the case here), so what you’re saying about advice is redundant to us.
Early widowhood is a lame concern. My little brother died @ 32, leaving a 30 year old widow behind. These things happen and don’t happen at random. Really I doubt it’s a legitimate concern but more of that reflexive, non thinking response that is culturally ingrained vs an actuall likely hood/ situation people want to avoid. Would you turn down the chance of 40 years o life, the joys,the pains, love and loss because it will come to an end in 2054 vs just alright ending @ 2060? Should we operate out o fear? Should the fear of Y amount of.suffering keep us from striving for X amount of joy, happiness and pleasure? No thank you, I’ll take my chances swinging for the fences
We have no idea when the Almighty will call us home. I’m drunk right now, looking at the boots, rifle and ACH tattooed on me, thinking of all the young men I have planted. Lives interrupted before they got the chance to live. Wives widowed, children orphaned. We should live, love, win, lose, succeed and fail with gusto and damn near reckless abandonment, counting the cost, being wise as serpents but always swinging for the fences and working toward our best shots of being happy and fulfilled.
There is time to worry about gossip, and early widowhood etc in grave.
I find the comments by Roseanne and Ted Colt to be fairly common amongst mothers and fathers of daughters that I have observed.
Mothers like Roseanne impose their own fears onto their daughters. Her biggest reasoning is that marrying young to a young man is better for a woman because it helps her to learn to struggle. Roseanne fears that women who don’t struggle will be bad wives and mothers I suppose.
Roseanne also fears her daughters or other young women being ostracized by peers for marrying an older man. Women fear being outside the herd. The problem for mothers like Roseanne is that this same herd is also sexualizing young women earlier and earlier. Girls that don’t dress provocatively or have their faces in their phones 24/7 are also ostracized.
The question comes down to what is best for your daughter, not what your daughter will be ostracized for by the herd. Too many mothers are not able to make these choices wisely for their daughters. I hope for her daughter’s sake that Roseanne’s husband has more of his own mind than she states.
As for Ted Colt, his point #4 is sad example of why young girls need fathers who can put their ego out of the way. Ted clearly sees himself as a very important person whose female offspring must have a man of his exact caliber or higher. While some may see this as good, protective fathering, it will ultimately skew the minds of his daughter.
I suspect his daughter is learning thie following from Ted – I’m the only man good enough for you. Daughters want to please their fathers, especially one who is as dominant as Ted appears to be in his comment. All men will fall short of how his daughters view him.
The fact is this, young women in our western culture today are babied and insulated from reality, especially the realities of marriage. Our society at large has perverted our basis for protecting young women (they are future mothers after all) to placing into an unrealistic realm.
I would say both Roseanne and Ted are hung up on one thing – neither like the idea of any man, but especially an older man, having sex with their young daughter. However, I would also say that using terms like “just marrying her for sex” is a ridiculous statement that flies in the face of human interaction. The Biblical basis for marriage is sex – just read 1 Corinthians 7.
Nearly all men, excepting those in some sort of arranged marriage, base their choice of wife on sexual desire. That means the young guy wishing to marry your daughter is just as sexually desirous as the older man. The only difference between the two is that the older man knows what he is giving up to commit his resources and future to your daughter while a younger man who has done nothing is only thinking about sex.
For the sake of their future healthy marriages, both Ted and Roseanne should embrace a man’s sexual desire for their daughters within marriage, not fight it. This is what bonds a man to woman. When a young woman gives her peak years of attractiveness and fertility to a man (16-22), she has given him one of her primary and most valuable gifts. Having “something in common” or being educated falls into a distant second for husbands behind those peak years. Why are parents of daughters deluding themselves otherwise?
Sometimes the best husband is a young man who can harness his sexual desires into becoming a good husband, good father, and good provider. Sometimes the best husband is an older man who has made his way in the world and has the wherewithal and desire to commit his current and future means towards a wife and a future family.
Not every young woman is a princess who will get her exact pick or the exact pick of her mother or father. The simple numbers show us that most young women will have to struggle to find a husband assuming they aren’t looking to try and marry a divorcee who already has children (bad idea). No parent of a young girl should write off any future husband for her based on age alone.
As to Roseanne and Ted Colt, I would say this – if there is any man of quality willing to give his life and livelihood to your daughters, you both need to remind yourself that this is a very significant offer. This is especially true in today’s divorce culture where men often lose their children and assets without any recourse.
For an offer of marriage to come from an established man, one that has worked and accomplished something (ie he actually has value and savings and a career), this is even more significant since he has lived and struggled and knows the value if what he is giving to her. A young man often does not know this yet since he hasn’t had to struggle yet.
@ DS,
You make some good points. Fair enough. The only thing is, this is one of those things that doesn’t necessarily have a right or wrong way about it. What I mean by that is, there are no Scriptures or official Traditions (that I’m aware of) that dictate what an acceptable age difference is between a husband and wife. (If there is one that I have overlooked, please point it out). Which means God doesn’t see it as a big enough deal to bother mentioning it, meaning it’s not a moral issue. As long as both are of legal age (since we are commanded in Scripture to submit to the government’s laws as long as they don’t contradict His laws), and both parties are interested, and the girl’s father approves (she is still under his authority until that authority is transferred to a husband), then it is acceptable regardless of what society thinks. A 30 year old wants to marry an 18 year old? As long as she and her father agree, then good. That 18 year old wants to marry an 18-22 year old instead and her father agrees, then that’s good too. This is what I meant when I said it’s irrelevant… since it’s not moral or immoral to prefer someone much older/younger than you or someone close to your own age, then why is anyone claiming that if someone wants something other than what you want that it is automatically wrong?
I’m way late to this.
I am a father of a teenaged daughter. She’s 15. I have thought about this.
My response would be that if she’s 18, 19 or 20, and an older man is interested in her; I’d simply want to meet the man and get to know him. I’d want to know that his intentions toward detiette were for marriage, and that he was evaluating her (and she him) with an eye toward marriage.
deti