--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> Justin wrote:
>
> > You're moving into the biologically irrelevant
> historical period.
>
>
> There is no evidence for male preference for women
> younger than they
> except from the biologically irrelevant historical
> period. There is
> no empirical evidence for prehistoric men's
> preference for younger
> prehistoric women.
>
> Besides, "the contemporary American marriage's
> average age difference is three years between
> spouses" (at <http://
>
www.harvardindependent.com/news/2005/10/13/Forum/Age-
>
> Gaps.In.Marriage.Good.Or.Bad-1021806.shtml>).
> That's a pretty small
> difference which doesn't make an impact on fertility
> or appearance
> for either sex. So, it seems to me that there is
> nothing here that
> one can explain biologically. A more plausible
> explanation is that
> parents in pre-modern times, and women in modern
> times, prefer older
> to younger men for, other things being equal, older
> men tend to have
> more economic resources than younger ones, whereas
> men, earning more
> than women on average and socially conditioned to
> avoid economic
> dependence on women, don't mind pairing with
> partners with lesser
> economic resources.
>
> > > There weren't too
> > > many old women (or
> > > old men for that matter). In that context, I
> doubt
> > > that age meant
> > > much of anything sexually,
> >
> > Well, I was really focusing on appearing fertile,
> ofw hich age
> > might be an index, I wasn't the one who brought
> that up. However,
> > it's also true, that a preference for
> fertileappearing women might
> > be linked to a preference for women in their teens
> rather than
> > their 20s or 30s because these might have more
> children simply as a
> > mater of time.
>
> As a matter of fact, it is probably easier for
> today's men to
> successfully procreate with much younger women than
> prehistoric men
> did. Why? Because the age of menarche, shaped by
> nutrition, has
> declined. "Menarche generally occurs earlier among
> well-nourished
> women. Average menarcheal age in the developed West
> is about 13
> years, while in the middle of the nineteenth century
> it was between
> 15 and 16 years among European women. Areas which
> have not
> experienced nutritional improvement over the past
> century have not
> witnessed decreases in the age at menarche"
> (<http://www.eh.net/
> encyclopedia/article/cuff.anthropometric>).
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://montages.blogspot.com>
> <http://monthlyreview.org>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud-
> ahmadinejads-face.html>;
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez-
> congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>;
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/
> 2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>
>
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