[LMB] age differences
Agnes Charrel-Berthillier
agnes at charrel.net
Tue Dec 7 18:16:31 GMT 2021
On 12/7/21 09:58, adkinslawfirm at mindspring.com wrote:
> When the Sharing Knife books first came out, some readers were scandalized by the age difference between Dag and Fawn. Others of us, familiar with older Harlequins & other romances, were more comfortable with the pairing of a woman of 17 and a man who looked 35.
>
> Oddly enough, two of the couples in _A Civil Campaign_ have similar age differences, with the men being about twice the age of their future wives. Delia and Olivia are 24 and 22; Duv and Dono are both well into their 40s. Yet I don't recall anyone on the list squawking, making "cradle-robbing" comments, or any other protest.
>
> Why the furor in the fantasy, but not the science fiction? "Is a puzzlement."
1) Dag was *not* actually 35. Even Fawn was mildly squicked out when she
found out his real age, and the people most upset initially (his aunt
and arguably Dag *himself*) were well aware of it.
2) There is a large difference in maturity between 17 and 22. Even
though 18 is an artificial bright line for adult responsibilities, see
what is currently expected of somebody who just graduated high school
and somebody who just graduated from college.
3) there might be an argument that in a society where medical science is
advanced enough there would be a flattening of perceived differences for
people in the "self sufficient" category, until they move to a
"responsible for dependents" stage of life. Perceptions would be very
different in a society where lives are shorter and more chancy/brutal.
That might be wrong: historically huge age differences between spouses
seemed more common then than now (but then marriages were also a lot
more transactional than now).
Agnes
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