What's the opposite of a cougar?

[delphipsmith]

Rereading Gone With the Wind for about the thirteenth time and loving it, as always. However, for the first time I really noticed some of the ages mentioned, and was a bit taken aback. Gerald O'Hara is 43 when he marries Ellen Robillard, who is only 15. Suellen O'Hara's "beau" Frank Kennedy is 40 and she's 14. And Rhett Butler is mentioned as being 30 or 35 at the beginning of the novel and Scarlett is only 16.

For some reason this never struck me before, but even for the 1860s this seems rather a wide age disparity.

Comments

[delphipsmith]

True, true. I think what surprised me wasn't so much the youth of the girls as the enormous age gap between them and the men. As you say, youthful marriage has always been around and it still happens even today, but the wide age disparity is something I associated more with medieval/Renaissance era. Especially since neither Gerald, Frank nor Rhett had been married before.

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

Now it was very unusual, I think, for the 40+ man to have never been married before. He would have been thought a rake, likely? or a permanent bachelor of *ahem* perhaps questionable morals. The 30 somethings had a little leeway, but the farther into the decade they got, the more they should have had a wife already.