[Ximenes]

Originally Posted by Benen an ynys

Even in modern times there are a very small minority of females who marry as young as 16 in developed countries. But 13? I don't think so matey!

Well, you are mistaken. And I think it's safe to say, that people who watch Romeo and Juliet generally do not see the plot as being some gross perversion.

In cultures where young girls are married off (often to old men), sometimes as young as 5 or 6 years of age etc, it is common practice that the "wife" doesn't go to live with her husband until she at least reaches menarche.

This has nothing to do with what I was talking about. Don't change the subject.

Still a perverted practice if you ask me, in the sense that it exploits, disempowers and basically takes away any personal freedoms or true respect of the vulnerable, but just goes to show that even in the most foreign of cultures sexual maturity is considered to be a significant factor.

You don't like arranged marriages. Okay. That has 0 to do with this discussion.

The latest research suggests that onset of puberty in females at least, is largely determined by body weight. It has always been the case that overweight or very tall girls tend to reach puberty at earlier ages than smaller, lighter girls. (Mind you, this is within the European spectrum... I think that some other races (like Australian aborigines) do on average mature sexually earlier than Europeans, regardless of weight.)

That's why I mentioned caloric intake.

I've never read any conclusive evidence that increased oestrogen (or oestrogen mimicking chemical) levels in the environment leads to ealier onset of puberty or menstruation in females.

Contamination of the water supply with female hormones should be prevented. I suggested it might have an effect.

It seems to me to be one of the hippy-trippy type theories.

"Hippy Trippy" or not endocrinologists consider it.

Report Of Earlier, Longer Puberty In Girls / Science News

As for keeping the sexes separated in school and air temperatures etc... I have no idea what you are talking about.

Well, I believe coeducation and the media cause a premature interest in sex among children. Whether that influences them physically or not, I don't know. But it's related to the problem of premature development. Here's a link about temperature.

SpringerLink - Journal Article

Gibbon, in discussing the case of Aisha, mentions the climate as a factor in early maturity.

Here's a link about the correlation of early menarche with the absence of a father (or presence of a "step-father")

SpringerLink - Journal Article

Funny... when I was 17 I remember thinking that guys in their 20's were old men. LOL! (Seems ridiculous to me now.) I also remember when a guy who was 25 asked me out when I was 18 and all my friends laughed and said that he was waaaaaay too old.

Yes, well, you are conditioned to think that way. Needless to say many women are not conditioned to think that way. The idea that teenage girls who are 18 think it is "bizarre" that they are interested in "older men" is just an anecdotal experience, and has little to do with the real world.

And I know it wasn't just me...

Last year I was doing a language course and we had to do an exercise where we had to match a quotation to a "person" on whom we were given some basic info like occupation etc. The youngest person in the class was a girl who must have been about 19 or 20... we all laughed when she matched the quote from a 26 year old man to a particluar picture because he looked "like, really old", according to her. The other 2 "people" we had to match were guys of 21 and 22.

Maybe it's just Australia though?

Yes, I think the stereotypical ideas about what is "normal" for women are highly entrenched in the anglosphere, as is feminism.

I wonder how so many women reconcile these ideas if they are fans of say Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.