cnystrom said:
Isabella said:
Whichever way you look at it and no matter how mature the young lady, there would still be an obvious power imbalance and that rightly, makes people feel uneasy,...
I am not sure why. Novels are filled with relationships between people with power imbalances ("Pride and Prejudice", etc). It seems to be part of the human experience.
P&P took place at a time where the Class system was a major power imbalance true, but the point was despite the Pride and Prejudice of the two protagonists they were actually intellectual equals.
This is certainly not the case in our modern day, firstly because we have a 'teenage' life cycle, something that did not exist in 1800. You went straight from girlhood to womanhood with very little buffer in between. Even so, Jane Austen herself was scathing of intellectual power inbalance, especially if someone marries for money/situation and it is always portrayed as disastrous, bad or tragic (Charlotte/Mr.&Mrs.Bennet
P&P, Mr. Elton
Emma Sir Elliot
Persuasion Maria
Mansfield Park or even Isabella's attempt in
Northanger Abbey ).
Now in present days we have a teenage culture and therefore an extended childhood, we expect or at least hope that our daughters, make not only a good, healthy marriage based upon love (not money) but marry when they are ready for marriage, with no regrets that they did not do anything else they wanted to beforehand which might lead to problems later, in other words, we (I speak in general though I am sure many people here might disagree) hoe our daughters marry when they are ready for marriage and not before.
Therefore, the idea that not only is this already an age imbalance from two people experiencing vastly different lifecycle cultures (really am not sure what a modern day 18 year old and 50+ have in common besides being human and possibly from the same country) we have a situation where the same woman would be disadvantaged in life (2nd power imbalance) therefore possibly financially dependant, will also have no legal rights because she is being brought into a Polygamous situation with a married couple (3rd power imbalance), this would have major implications on her life if she has children especially. If, for any reason she is unhappy (and believe me, if she is 18 and has a rapidly ageing husband who she is not sexually attracted to, that could be quicker than one expects, gratitude only takes you so far) they power imbalance of age and position means she could be easily persuaded to accept less than what she is expected to have by both the older husband and the older sisterwife. Who is to say there would be any parity in this situation at all, her SW would see her as a kid (especially if she has children close in age to her) and who wants another child forced upon you when you expect to have a friend?
It would be all too easy to treat a teenage sw not like an equal in the home but as a child of the home, which creates conflict.
She may want to leave but finds she cannot because her situation is even more disadvantaged than it was previously and they then would have no rights to any support for themselves, they will more than likely lose their home and the home of their children.
Marriage doesn't help 18 year olds get there act together, better parenting does. I personally know many women of the 35+ age range, some with children, some whose children are grown, who are finding life difficult or just plain lonely after years of being single who not only want to be sisterwives but they would be of parity of age between all parties concerned, an older woman would have more life experience to know what she wants and what she is getting into, Her husband would be a husband to her and not a substitute father figure (ewwwwww) and they are more likely to grow together, with less resentment that the husband is now getting creaky and can't keep up. Also, he is less likely to be mistaken for her dad. A 40 year old single mother on a low wage with a pubescent boy desperate for a male role model is vastly more in
need for marriage to a man in his 50s than an 18 year old.
Maybe you just have to be a woman to get this but, to me, this looks like a (bad) justification to get the kind of women the OP is specifically sexually interested in (what is
around 18 anyway? is it 16 or is it 20? Either way, it is easily an age of a child he could have already fathered which just looks really bad) rather than a true desire to do what is best for any teenager in need, want to help a teen, be a foster parent, don't marry them in a Polygamous marriage where they are greatly disadvantaged and have no legal protection.
B
