Why do men generally marry younger women?

Inareskai · 2022-09-26T11:07:11+00:00

Isn't it weird how you can see stats that just don't reflect your lived experience at all? Almost every couple I know the woman is older (including my own).

If I had to guess at an explanation for the general trend, I'd say that it is commonly held that women mature faster than men (I don't know if I agree, but it is a commonly asserted idea). But it does lead to a socialisation where women are 'ready to settle down' (or at least expected to) at a younger age. So it leads to the situation where most people who find their life goals and aims align will also find an age gap.

ceinwyn15 · 2022-09-26T15:02:17+00:00

Of you go to feminist theory, men have a hard time creating a emotional connection to women as partners and equals due to lack of socialization with emotions, therefore men don't mind having a wife that is 16 years younger than them, but women would. In our societal ethos men should "take care" Of women, putting them in a position of dependency, much like children. You can see that going back about 30, 40 years, in all the adds that show women struggling with basic appliances. If you want more proof of that, you can see the same statistics of countries in the iron Curtain, and how different they are. One of the few benefits of communism is that both genders were supposed to work and share responsibilities, creating a more equal society - there were even public preschools so women could keep working instead of staying at home. If you look at the 60s in America and in hungary or Romania, for example, you can really get the difference. It's not biological, it's societal.

EntertainmentNeat592 · 2022-09-26T17:59:00+00:00

First of all, the link you provide has information prior to 2013 when the age gap was 2.4. The number of older men marry younger women has gone down since 2013 and now the gap is 1.8 and the gap is declining even more. In boomer generation it would be unusual for women to be older but among millennials it’s perfectly normal.

Traditionally, men played the role of provider and women child bearer and nurturer. So men married late and women married early. As women started to enter workforce and women started delaying marriage the gap between men and women declined as well.

This is why in culture the where women financially depends on men the men tend to be almost always older. On the other hand, in culture where women tend to be educated and successful wives tend to be older than their husbands in similar rate.

Btw, in some parts of the world like Oceania regions for some reason women on average tend to be older.

ceinwyn15 · 2022-09-26T15:04:10+00:00

As another comment, red pill is a mainly American theory, and it can ressonate with American Society, but it definitely doesn't, in several points, with other societies. That is proof that the biological element is not imperative, or else it would be more or less the same everywhere

meghan518 · 2022-09-27T21:13:59+00:00

Honestly it just boils down to older traditions that are no longer that relevant

Before in the past men had to achieve a certain level of financial stability of the woman's family would not approve the marriage. Family wanted to know their daughter would be taken care of since she had no/limited economic options, and that having babies is expensive. Because of this they married their daughters to slightly older men because they had more savings due to working longer, getting promoted, ect..

Now in most countries it's just tradition. Like brides wearing white. It's not really needed, but many do it anyway because it's what their parents did.

the-aids-bregade · 2022-09-27T22:35:50+00:00

my personal guess is low age women have low expectations because they haven't had any real relationships to set a standard for propper treatment or sex and have been influenced by toxic resources without developing the commen sense portion of their brain

sshlongD0ngsilver · 2022-09-26T11:40:41+00:00

So this is kinda gonna be a RP explanation, but aside from the common notion of women maturing earlier than men (I don’t know how true that is), I would assume women would prefer guys that have their lives/career put together (financially) and more life experiences (to appear more interesting). Younger guys probably wouldn’t really have that if they’re broke college students that spend most of their time studying and working part-time.

SweelFor- · 2022-09-26T13:36:02+00:00

https://youtu.be/o43beSatw-k

incredulitor · 2022-09-26T14:01:24+00:00

It's hard to beat the page you already linked.

The evolutionary takes on that page of course sound a lot more like RP explanations than the others. The reasons for that probably run in both directions: RP is generally about squashing the sense of agency and vulnerability out of relationships. Evolutionary psychology does exactly that by taking it as a given that the important areas for study are those where we can look at how historical circumstances would have predetermined that people would tend to think or act in a certain way.

There are two directions you can take that: if I'm a pillhead, then by a circular argument the whole game is rigged, and I'm justified in doing things like breaking people down so they stay with me because neither of us really had the choice to ever be any different. If I'm a normie, then I can just kind of accept that and then move on to other areas of my life that I do have some choice over, including how much I associate with people that are caught up in thinking that either they or other people are lacking agency or choice, or should be. If I'm in the normie category, the "cross cultural differences" and "social perspectives" section of the wiki page you linked are probably far, far more meaningful for giving me some language and concepts to talk about why my personal, local or regional experience of this might tend in a certain direction and also what kinds of choices I can reasonably make about it.

What other kinds of perspectives would be useful?

EmuGroundbreaking327 · 2024-12-20T09:30:22+00:00

It’s obvious unless your one of the rarer men who prefer older women.

Ok_Reporter5294 · 2025-10-17T20:32:19+00:00

Desgraciadamente, como comenta entre otros, Radiant, estética o físicamente lo femenino envejece peor que lo masculino y los hombres se aprovechan de esa realidad. Los hombres pueden elegir siempre a lo largo de su vida entre mujeres jóvenes y de más edad, pero no se da a la inversa, a no ser que la mujer sea muy dinámica, de personalidad arrolladora, tenga mucho dinero etc. Pero el hombre sea feo, soso, antipático, enfermo, o pobre nunca experimenta la falta de mujeres y además más jóvenes que él. ¡La vida es muy injusta!

Naus1987 · 2022-09-26T16:00:27+00:00

In the boomer generation, and older, men were expected to be the breadwinner. Statistically an older man will always provide more money than a younger man. Though a few years shouldn't make much difference.

But I think something to consider to, is that traditionally, men have almost always been the ones to ask women out. So the answer is probably somewhere in a man's head. Maybe he's just asking the most attractive women out there, and they just happen to be younger. And it's a total fluke.

I'd be curious OP, since you said your parents are reversed. Did you mom ask your dad out, or did he ask her out?

Rook_Cross · 2022-09-27T03:29:33+00:00

Evolutionary reasons. Takes them a bit longer to mature if I recall, good that they have some resources too. So, while men her age are maturing there's already mature men for her to marry, with resources to provide for a family. Not like a decade older mind you, just a couple years. There's also a social stigma, used to be quite extreme, people would lie often if the woman was even a bit older. The social norm comes from the evolutionary norm. Though it's not completely necessary, the norm does have some basis in what is generally best for us, or more likely to lead to a successful union. A small gap is natural, doesn't mean there has to be one, or that it going the other way is necessarily bad. Big gaps are bad for the health and happiness of the younger partner, and the older one if the older one is a women, it's unnatural to have big age gaps, more likely to lead to divorce too. See RP takes a kernel of truth, or scientific speculation, and manipulates it, and grossly out of proportion, to it's own end, and without understanding why it applies in the first place.

Radiant_Specific6542 · 2022-09-26T18:41:25+00:00

There's a factual answer. Men are far more attracted to youth, beauty, and fertility. Those 3 things typically go hand-to-hand. Is there exceptions to this? Of course, just like most concepts but men aren't complicated. We're visual creatures.

Copperstoner · 2022-09-26T13:28:44+00:00

There could be thousands of reasons and the only thing we can do here is to guess. My guess is probably as good as your guess...

gls2220 · 2022-09-27T00:39:40+00:00

What do you consider a red pill explanation? I mean, there are the obvious reasons, which are that men prize youth, beauty, and reproductive fitness and that women are attracted to men that are farther along in their careers, with greater status, and greater financial means than men their own age. Are those red pill explanations?

Title	Why do men generally marry younger women?
Author	FionaGallagher2021
Upvotes	0
Comments	30
Date	September 26, 2022 10:55 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/xofyf4/why_do_men_generally_marry_younger_women/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/why-do-men-generally-marry-younger-women.1133827 https://theredarchive.com/post/1133827

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