Older Men and Younger Women

Everyone today knows there is something very wrong with men marrying women much younger than themselves, right? Especially, there is something very, very wrong with an aduly male marrying a girl under, say, sixteen, right?

But older man--younger woman marriages used to be considered ideal all over the world. It is perhaps only North America and Europe that have recently fallen out of step.

The prophet Muhammed married his wife Ayesha when he was fifty and she was twelve.

It was traditionally believed that Joseph was an old man (of ninety, according to the earliest sources) and Mary very young, twelve, when they wed.

These were always considered the ideal marriages in the Muslim and Christian world respectively.

Judaism? Check out the Song of Solomon: of the bride, the book says that her breasts have not yet developed. "Our sister is little: her breasts are not yet formed. What shall we do for our sister on the day that she is spoken for?" SofS 8:7.

In India, Africa, and across the Far East, child brides and May-December marriages are still common.

The interesting question is where the prejudice against mixed-age marriages comes from in modern times. If it is racism to condemn mixed-race marriages, isnt it equally ageism to condemn mixed-age marriages?