User talk:Wolfsebin

why young girls always marry old guys

Men marry younger women and women prefer to marry older men, in general. But is it culture, genetics or the environment that drives such a choice—and is there an optimal age difference? New research shows that, at least for the Sami people of preindustrial Finland, men should marry a woman almost 15 years their junior to maximize their chances of having the most offspring that survive.

"We studied how parental age difference at marriage affected [families'] reproductive success among Sami people who married only once in their lifetime[s]," says ecologist Samuli Helle of the University of Turku in Finland. "We found that marrying women 14.6 years younger maximized men's lifetime reproductive success—in other words, the number of offspring surviving to age 18." The researchers did this by examining church records of 700 marriages from the Utsjoki, Inari and Enontekiö populations from the 17th through 19th centuries (in order to eliminate the effects of modern medicine on child survival).

Yet, only 10 percent of these marriages were between men and women with that optimal age difference. The span ranged from men marrying women as much as 20 years older to women marrying men as much as 25 years older; the average age difference between husband and wife was three years. Marriage customs or the availability of reindeer to support a new family (the Sami people are reindeer herders) might be the reason that more Sami marriages did not display the optimum age difference, Helle says. Ultimately, it is the age at which the woman begins bearing children that is the biggest factor in survival, the paper in Biology Letters suggests: Younger women, in general, bear more healthy children. Marrying an older woman or much older man proved the most detrimental to reproductive success. Other research in modern day Sweden has shown that the ideal reproductive match is for a man to marry a woman six years his junior. But the cultural constraints on marriage may have changed. "Wealth was the most important factor in a [Sami] marriage," Helle notes. "Love played almost no role in it." Age disparity in sexual relationships refers to sexual relations between people with a significant difference in age. Whether these relationships are accepted and the question of what counts as a significant difference in age has varied over time; and varies over cultures,[2] different legal systems,[3] and different ethical systems. It often depends on differing attitudes towards perceived social and economic differences between age groups and how consent is viewed, and sometimes whether or not the relationship is part of a spiritual or legal marriage. •

Ethical considerations

In a Brown University study, it has been noted that the social structure of a country determines the age difference between spouses more than any other factor. One of the concerns of relationships with age disparities in some cultures is a perceived difference between people of different age ranges. These differences may be sexual, financial, and/or social in nature. Gender roles may complicate this even further. Socially, a society with a difference in wealth distribution between older and younger people that may affect the dynamics of the relationship.] Sexually, It is noted that older people tend to have lower sex drives, and younger people tend to be sexually inexperienced. Legally, there is the issue of consent, where minors (please see the article on Age of Consent for further information) and older people with certain health problems are considered unable to consent to a relationship. Studies

Relationships with age disparity of all kinds have been observed with both men and women as the older or younger significant other. In the modern Western culture, older men often seek younger women. Older women often date younger men as well, and in both cases wealth and physical attractiveness are often relevant. On average in Europe, most men marry women around three years younger. A study released in 2003 by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics concluded that the proportion of women in England and Wales marrying younger men rose from 15% to 26% between 1963 and 1998. In August 2010, Dr. Michael Dunn of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff completed and released the results of a study on age disparity in dating. Dr. Dunn concluded that "Not once across all ages and countries...did females show a preference for males significantly younger than male preferences for females" and that there was a "consistent cross-cultural preference by women for at least same-age or significantly older men." A 2003 AARP study had previously brought results that 34% of forty-year and older women were dating younger men.

Sociobiological considerations On average humans reach the age of reproduction starting at ages 11–14 for girls and 12-16 for boys. For women the average age of menopause is in their late forties and early fifties, and before that infertility is known to increase with age.] While men do not necessarily become sterile with age, infertility does go up with age. From an evolutionary perspective, it can be interpreted that mating with humans below and above the age of fertility is not as advantageous as mating with some one within that range, and this may be the reason attractions to people outside of one's age range is less common.