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