The number of instances that a typical American will need to be ‘humble and obedient’ - such as while getting pulled over by a cop, are possibly far fewer than the number of instances a woman in a traditional society such as the one described by Haidt is required to do so.
Possibly by an order of magnitude.
This helped me to prevent clutter from creeping back into my house after a dedicated decluttering effort: Never put an item on your list of things to buy the first time you feel a need for it. Wait until you feel its absence it 2 or 3 times, because chances are, something you’ve already got can substitute well enough for the functionality you are missing.
If you ever declutter, you’ll find a surprising amount of products that end up in the corners of shelves which were used only once ever and then forgotten. Chances are you’ll find 2 or 3 copies of the same thing, because a lot of times you don’t even remember you had bought one of them months ago.
Ciphergoth’s maxim for purchases of expensive items is excellent. I’m going to be using it, thanks!
I think all of us commenting have different age ranges in our heads for ‘older men’ and ‘younger women’. Anyhow the OP as far as I understand talks about very young women - ‘girls who have recently exited puberty’, and the discussion in the comments talking about ‘power’ and ‘stature’ seems to suggest men who are already fairly well established in their careers—at least the early thirties?
That’s anywhere from a 15-20 year age gap. Not a whole lot more common than older woman-younger men pairings.
Possibly the the time spent in figuring out which ones are classy as opposed to ‘wannabe’ or ‘cheesy’ or ‘trying too hard’ or ‘lower class’. Probably difficult to figure out for any given group to which you are signalling you belong, unless you actually do belong to that group.
Upvoted for saying what I was trying to say with far fewer words. :)
The best solution I’ve heard started by looking at who benefits from this norm [older women] and wondering whether they could have contributed to it.
While this is generally a good question to ask, at this point you would also need to think of a plausible mechanism by which older women could have contributed to the change. What new powers have older women (Would this be women over 30? those over 40?) gained compared to younger women, younger men and older men in this period that they could have used to change the norms so drastically? How would they have cooperated between themselves to thwart the other groups’ desires?
A few centuries ago, we did not have the laws against child labour that we do today, and it was common for young children to work and support their families. This norm has changed, and I don’t think we need to ask the question of who benefited and posit that there has been an increase in this-or-the-other group’s power to explain the shift.
Nowadays in many parts of the world sixteen-year-old girls themselves have a say in who they hook up with, which is something a lot of societies in ancient times (and very many even now) did not grant them. This should definitely be a factor in your analysis!
While not exactly an answer to your question, this Economist article talks about certain situations where social norms and options available in the workplace etc might push younger women away from matrimony altogether, not just matrimony with much older men.
Attempted 2 online courses on Coursera. Grossly overestimated my own free time and conscientiousness, failed to make it even mid-way through both.
I’m not giving up though. Have signed up for one course this month—the introduction to Quantum Mechanics taught by Umesh Vazirani. Must do better and complete the course this time because if not, I just might start to self-identify as someone who plans, but does not execute!
Also all those dramatic technological developments of 6000 years ago, which seem minor now due to the passage of time and further advances in knowledge and technology. As no doubt the discovery of the Higgs Boson or the Voyager leaving the boundary of the solar system would seem in 8012. AD. If anybody even remembers these events then.
Upvoted because 10% as an estimate seems too high.
I especially can’t imagine why transhuman powers would have used the end of the calendar of a long-dead civilization (one of many comparable civilizations) to foreshadow the end of their game plan.
Hmm.. Not sure about the etiquette of posting the link in a public forum since it’s not meant for redistribution, but will keep it for now.
You can get the ‘author’s version’ of the paper ‘for personal use, not redistribution’ by going to this website, and providing your email ID:
Is your background Catholic? Asking because although I haven’t delved in depth into ‘justifications for belief’ of various religions recently (I stopped shopping around for a religion 16-17 years ago), I don’t remember Catholic justifications as being particularly stronger than that of the others I was reading up about (Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism).
Heh, was just about to post that I as an Indian woman who has done a fair bit of travelling around the country have NEVER ever seen this, but decided to google just in case. And found a New York Times article agreeing with the claim. Upper class privilege indeed. :)
In any case this doesn’t look like an institutional policy, just petty corruption against those who are the least powerless to stop it. Which is sort of your point.