From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!arens
Newsgroups: net.social
Title: Re: re: age differences
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.565
Posted: Wed Jan 12 00:31:54 1983
Received: Thu Jan 13 06:45:30 1983

I was just now reminded of some research a sociologist friend of mine was doing
a while ago about social mobility in New England in the early 1800's.

He was going over registries of marriages and checking (as far as was possible)
the social background of the people involved, using in addition census info
from that period (which included names and income).

It turned out, to my surprise, that it was very common to find men in their
early 20's marrying women in their 40's.  My friend explained that in these
cases the woman was most often a widow who had inherited property from her
previous late husband.

This would tend to give support to the theory that the age difference was 
intended to ensure that the older partner could provide financially for the
younger one.

Yigal Arens
UC Berkeley