What age difference is acceptable?

[mennonitemom1]

what is an unacceptable age difference? What if the man is the older one and what if the woman is the older one?

[RZehr]

Man 65, woman is 50, no problem.
Man 30, woman is 15, problem.

[Ken]

What about 12 year old girls marrying adult men? Some Republican legislators in Missouri today want to make that legal

[Soloist]

What about 12 year old girls marrying adult men? Some Republican legislators in Missouri today want to make that legal

I propose these legislators can marry their pillows instead! That way everyone is happy.

[Josh]

Depends on the culture. In America today people think you need to be at least 18 to marry, although oddly enough, it's perfectly fine to start having sex at a much younger age without getting married.

[Neto]

In the Banawa culture, once a person is an adult, the age is considered more or less the same.
My (maternal) Grandpa was 33 when he and my Grandma married - she was 17. (And he had is 34th birthday before she turned 18.) So her parents (my great grandparents) were only about 10 years older than he. They were both 89 when they each died, so she was a widow for around 17 years. My paternal grandparents were only a couple of years different in age, but my Grandpa Buller died at 68, and Grandma died at 89. So she was a widow longer than my mom's mother.

I suppose I would say that up to a few years different - either way - would generally be ideal. Some people say men always die younger than women, so it's better if the wife is older. But that has it disadvantages as well.

Question: Does only the older spouse get "age-related complaining rights"? (If I tell my wife that I didn't sleep well, it seems that she takes it as saying that she slept better than I. I have told her that I don't know how well she slept, and I'm not saying I had a worse time than she did, just that it didn't go well for me.)

[Grace]

What about 12 year old girls marrying adult men? Some Republican legislators in Missouri today want to make that legal

Kind of akin to Democrats supporting the sexualization of children through trans surgeries, trans educating, idolizing trans people, etc. That is what pedophiles do.

[Josh]

My grandparents got married at 16 & 18 and had a lifelong marriage. My in laws at 17 & 18 and (so far) a lifelong marriage as well.

I think too big of an age difference can be a real bummer later in life when dad is pretty old compared to his young children, or when a widow or widower has many years left to live. I think beyond a 10 year age difference, this starts to become an issue.

[Neto]

My parents were both 20. My dad was the oldest child, my mom the 2nd. I felt sorry for my much younger cousins, who never knew my grandparents "in their prime years". Like how I knew several of my great grand parents, I guess, just as old people who seemed to only ever sit in their rocker. That's how most of our grandchildren will remember us, I guess. But I do wish that my parents had taken us along to visit their grandparents more. But now my mom has still never seen 3 of our grandchildren, and the oldest not for nearly 5 years already. That's the cost of scattered families - "marrying from afar" in my case.

[steve-in-kville]

Fun fact. My wife is seven years older than me. I know of many other marriages where there are large gaps in age, but no one really makes a big deal out of it (if they even know).