At the end of the 18th century, the average age of first marriage was 28 years old for men and 26 years old for women. During the 19th century, the average age fell for English women, but it didn’t drop any lower than 22. Patterns varied depending on social and economic class, of course, with working-class women tending to marry slightly older than their aristocratic counterparts. But the prevailing modern idea that all English ladies wed before leaving their teenage years is well off the mark.
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How does that differ from what I wrote?
When Moore married his wife, he was about 38, she 24. A trifle weird and creepy. But just a little.
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If the women are getting married at 26, I doubt that they were courting in their mid-teens. A decade-long engagement is possible, but seems unlikely.
And since the average age for male marriage was only two years older than that for the women, it seems that decade+ age gaps were also uncommon.
You’ll get some extreme situations amongst the nobility, but they’re highly atypical.
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“We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall … but you really wouldn’t say anything to someone like that.”
CBS News has reached out to Jones for comment.
Jones, now a partner at the Syprett, Meshad, Resnick, Lieb, Dumbaugh, Jones, Krotec & Westheimer, P.A. law firm based in Sarasota, Florida, served as deputy district attorney for Etowah County, Alabama from 1982 to 1985, according to her firm’s website. Moore worked as a deputy district attorney in that office from 1977 to 1982. Before joining the DA’s office, Jones was the assistant city attorney for the city of Gadsden, Alabama, the county seat of Etowah County.
If only someone with sort of legal training new about this?
Joking aside, if someone with legal training and a public position didn’t feel able to say something, it shows how strong the protection is for establishment sexual predators.
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But that was exactly my point, which is why I mentioned younger sons. There were a number of professions/occupations where later marriage of men was normal, such as ship’s officer, Army officer, planter. My point was that there were social rules codifying it, whereas today if you move in the “right circles” there don’t seem to be.
You seemed to be simply trying to prove me wrong without considering the context of which I was writing, by using a general statistic when I was referencing a subset which in those days was fairly small.
Alabama is doing it wrong. Moore’s cronies are praying for him and normalizing his behavior, meanwhile a few days ago in Kansas a man was given a life sentence for repeatedly fondling a girl’s breasts.
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I think it’s also a case of strong suspicion but no actual proof. They knew he was dating teenagers and thought it was weird but didn’t know if it went any further. That’s where the position of power kicks in. If it was just Joe the gas station attendant dating under age you can bet that the local sheriff would be breathing down his neck. But Moore was a “respected” member of Society, and that’s my point; it’s an issue of power that extends beyond sexual predation and into all kinds of being a shitty person.
I’m not saying that power makes people shitty, it just makes it easy. Maybe if some of these people got caught and properly dealt with the first time they would have stopped.
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That’s Brightfart re-framing the discussion. “Even though the law says X, forget that folks - we can live by Y because we’re more sensible”
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1/2 + 7 = 26
More than a trifle.
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The comment before that jumped out at me…
“It was common knowledge that Roy dated high school girls, everyone we knew thought it was weird,”
She describes this as weird (not criminal, wrong, disturbing, etc.) just odd or unusual. Comments like this show why the justice system works so differently for people with privilege. For them, everything is excused or explained away - and allowed to continue. These folks are protected from the consequences of their actions for decades. At the same time, innocent people without influence can easily be victimized, jailed, convicted, incarcerated, and worse based on the decisions, actions, and inaction of people like Jones.
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Yeah, the double standard. If you’re on their side, anything illegal you did is merely “problematic,” but if they’re against you, any action that’s at all problematic suddenly gets treated as if it were illegal…
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Melania 28, Trump 52 (first date).
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Not to mention the fate of Anthony Weiner, who sent nudie pictures to an underage girl and is now incarcerated for it, and yet I don’t recall any politician or religious leader who defended his behavior. I guess Moore is special guy.
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The article you posted reminded me of efforts to stop child marriage that were cast as supporting religious freedom for immigrants. They gloss over the Christian religious groups:
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Yup. I remember gals I knew my freshman year of college dating thirty year olds.
Once I got to that age, I looked back and realized the same. Those guys were losers.
I also like to joke about the stereotypical midlife crisis. “I am too young to date 20-somethings”.
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I wonder if it also is correlated to southern / rural culture? I recall around 2004 reading an article about a rural Virginia Township putting up billboards that read, “Isn’t she a bit young?”
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Exactly. If you’re poor you’re psychotic, if you’re rich you are merely eccentric.
[that’s a general “you”, not a personal one.]
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I guess Moore is special guy.
It’s more that Weiner is not part of the club, while Moore is…
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