<story><title>Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2023-01-reveals-average-age-conception-men.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pronlover723</author><text>I watch a lot of old movies (30s-40s-50s). A ton of them have a 40s-50s man marrying a 20s woman.&lt;p&gt;No idea if that was societal norm, mens fantasy, or whatever. I have to kind of believe movie execs would want the largest audience and so if 40s-50s men dating 20s women was not appealing to women of the time they&amp;#x27;d been losing 1&amp;#x2F;2 the market. But, maybe these particular movies were the male equivalent of romance novels which seem to be written 99% for a female audience&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;p&gt;The Girl Can&amp;#x27;t Help It (1956)&lt;p&gt;South Pacific (1958)&lt;p&gt;My Fair Lady (1964)&lt;p&gt;The Far Country (1954)&lt;p&gt;Casablanca (1942)&lt;p&gt;To Have and Have Not (1944)&lt;p&gt;Charade (1963)&lt;p&gt;There are literally 100s of them and I&amp;#x27;m not recommending any of the movies above per-say, but it does stick out to me just how common that theme is of man, at least 15yrs older than woman which I believe is less common today</text></item><item><author>sdwr</author><text>A lot to unpack (read - wildly speculate about) here.&lt;p&gt;10,000 generations ago. Like the next one but less of a &amp;quot;solved game&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;1000 generations ago - Old men coupling with young women reads as small-scale tribal society to me. Polygamy, pride-of-lions. Groups are small enough that village elders control the, uh, means of production. The bottleneck on food is natural stocks.&lt;p&gt;200-300 generations ago lines up with the dawn of civilization and large-scale farming (5-7000 years ago). The bottleneck on food is human labour. Young people are encouraged to start (reasonably) self-sufficient farming families, and the surplus is traded for, taxed, or stolen.&lt;p&gt;0-50 generations ago (1000AD+)
??? Cultural escape velocity is reached. Women are having children later than ever before, pointing to less risky lives, greater food security, and increased autonomy, but also a heavier load of cultural baggage. Becoming elves isn&amp;#x27;t all it&amp;#x27;s cracked up to be.&lt;p&gt;Also, before someone else says it, blah blah blah average vs median.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>llampx</author><text>I wonder how many of the male protagonists in these movies are extraordinarily 
or above-average rich, successful, handsome or charming.&lt;p&gt;I daresay you won&amp;#x27;t find a George from Seinfeld in there, rather a set of George Clooneys.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t doubt that there was an age difference, but we have&amp;#x2F;had plenty of living couples from that era and can look in the census records - were Spring&amp;#x2F;Fall marriages that common?</text></comment>
<story><title>Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2023-01-reveals-average-age-conception-men.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pronlover723</author><text>I watch a lot of old movies (30s-40s-50s). A ton of them have a 40s-50s man marrying a 20s woman.&lt;p&gt;No idea if that was societal norm, mens fantasy, or whatever. I have to kind of believe movie execs would want the largest audience and so if 40s-50s men dating 20s women was not appealing to women of the time they&amp;#x27;d been losing 1&amp;#x2F;2 the market. But, maybe these particular movies were the male equivalent of romance novels which seem to be written 99% for a female audience&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;p&gt;The Girl Can&amp;#x27;t Help It (1956)&lt;p&gt;South Pacific (1958)&lt;p&gt;My Fair Lady (1964)&lt;p&gt;The Far Country (1954)&lt;p&gt;Casablanca (1942)&lt;p&gt;To Have and Have Not (1944)&lt;p&gt;Charade (1963)&lt;p&gt;There are literally 100s of them and I&amp;#x27;m not recommending any of the movies above per-say, but it does stick out to me just how common that theme is of man, at least 15yrs older than woman which I believe is less common today</text></item><item><author>sdwr</author><text>A lot to unpack (read - wildly speculate about) here.&lt;p&gt;10,000 generations ago. Like the next one but less of a &amp;quot;solved game&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;1000 generations ago - Old men coupling with young women reads as small-scale tribal society to me. Polygamy, pride-of-lions. Groups are small enough that village elders control the, uh, means of production. The bottleneck on food is natural stocks.&lt;p&gt;200-300 generations ago lines up with the dawn of civilization and large-scale farming (5-7000 years ago). The bottleneck on food is human labour. Young people are encouraged to start (reasonably) self-sufficient farming families, and the surplus is traded for, taxed, or stolen.&lt;p&gt;0-50 generations ago (1000AD+)
??? Cultural escape velocity is reached. Women are having children later than ever before, pointing to less risky lives, greater food security, and increased autonomy, but also a heavier load of cultural baggage. Becoming elves isn&amp;#x27;t all it&amp;#x27;s cracked up to be.&lt;p&gt;Also, before someone else says it, blah blah blah average vs median.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vintermann</author><text>There have been men in their 20s marrying women in their 50s too (especially when inheritances have been involved) but since they wouldn&amp;#x27;t get children in that case, they would be totally invisible in these kinds of genetic statistics.&lt;p&gt;Even if average age in a relationship was symmetric, men being fertile for longer would cause age at (child&amp;#x27;s) conception to be higher for men. That effect needs to be untangled before we can know just how much men preferred younger women in the past&amp;#x2F;vice versa.</text></comment>