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

[drinkingcocoa.livejournal.com]

*shudder* I forgot that Gerald was 43! I remembered that Ellen was very young, but it's been a while, and the last time I read GWTW, I was nowhere near my forties. Now, imagining myself looking at a crop of 15-year-olds to choose one for a spouse -- eerrraaggghhh! Shudder. I would probably just... actually, there is a scene from American Beauty that sums it up for me. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but I laughed with delight when I saw it.

[nocturnus33]

It depends on the cultural setting. In Chile could have been possible 60 years ago. (Not now)

My inlaws were 16 and 30 when they marry. He was a workman and she a country girl. Back then in 1958, it would have been frown upon in other social class but not unusual in lower social classes.

But it was possible for upper classes one generation before them:

My mother in law was a high school student when my grandpa started teaching her as a history teacher at her school. They both came from very posh families. They fall in love....and my great grandparents decided that my grandma has to drop out from school so they continue their courting.

Both my grandparents and my in-laws had very happy marriages.

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

Apparently the "Old South" was the heyday for pedophiles as well as racists.

[toblass.livejournal.com]

I think that was more common back in the day. Wasn't Colonel Brandon about 35 when he first met Marianne Dashwood who was only 16?

[helenarickman.livejournal.com]

This is not uncommon through history everywhere. Consider that before modern times there was very little birth control and also high mortality during child birth. A man would often marry two or three times during his lifetime - not because of divorce, but because of the wife dying. Her children are left behind so the man would often remarry to have 1. a wife to raise his children 2. a wife to care for the home.

The image that comes to mind for me is so many young women in their teens that travelled to the west with pioneering families.

Finally, if you are a parent and your daughter is old enough to menstruate, she is old enough to marry. Depending upon your means, it could very well be to your benefit to marry your daughter off as soon as possible.

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

It wasn't uncommon in that period. It fluctuates depending on culture and time period, but back then, not so unusual. In his 40s, she'd have been his second or third wife, his previous ones probably have died in childbirth. Many times men wouldn't marry until they were established.

For example, Regency era, men didn't often marry until their late twenties early thirties if I remember right. And despite what romances say, you weren't on the shelf unless you put yourself there until your late 20s, according to research I've done (if I could find the link I'd send it to yoy). I believe this changed more in the Victorian era when marrying young came more in vogue again. And through out child birth took many women. I'm not as studied in that era though.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

> What's the opposite of a cougar?

Vixen?

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

Not unusual when women were (more or less) treated as a commodity for the provision of a new generation of property holders.

It meant that the "ideal" age for a man to marry was when they had reached their level of financial security and for women when they at the age to give birth and bring up the youngster.

The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
Aristotle, Politics, Book VII, 1335.a27