50 Divided By Half Plus 20

[Graziana Getz]

Duringthe last presidential election, one thing became crystal clear: our country is split into two halves \u2014 those who voted for Biden, and those who voted for Trump. Plus another half, who didn\u2019t vote at all. Plus a fourth half who are the seven million more people who voted for Biden than for Trump, but who we didn\u2019t count in the first two halves because the first two halves needed to be even, so we could say the country is split into two halves.

To put it simply, these United States are deeply divided across party lines, and it\u2019s a dead heat. Half are Democrats, and half are Republicans. And then the other half aren\u2019t. And that half is the size of the first two halves combined. And a final half didn\u2019t want to talk to us. And then one more half are babies.

But look outside of your many-America body, and you\u2019ll see that the deep divisions of these United States are not new. Back in the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson there were between two and five million different halves of the country. But the split down the middle of our nation is more pronounced today than ever before, especially since there are now about 330 million different middles.

Some relationship experts uphold the general value and decency of half your age plus seven while others critique it for 1) perpetuating male-centric age disparities in relationships, 2) stigmatizing older women as less desirable, and 3) washing over the importance of compatibility and other personal qualities to a relationship.

This is not meant to be a formal definition of half your age plus seven like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of half your age plus seven that will help our users expand their word mastery.

What is the acceptable minimum age for a dating partner? When this question comes up in conversation, someone inevitably cites the half your age plus seven rule. This rule states that by dividing your own age by two and then adding seven you can find the socially acceptable minimum age of anyone you want to date.

Researchers Buunk and colleagues (2000) asked men and women to identify the ages they would consider when evaluating someone for relationships of different levels of involvement. People reported distinct age preferences for marriage; a serious relationship; falling in love; casual sex; and sexual fantasies. Did they follow the rule?"

Curious outsiders are quick to judge when they can see a wide age gap between two romantic partners. Maybe this is why the rule is so appealing. In a world in which many social norms are often unspoken, the half-your-age-plus-7 rule concretely defines a boundary.

In sexual relationships, concepts of age disparity, including what defines an age disparity, have developed over time and vary among societies. Differences in age preferences for mates can stem from partner availability, gender roles, and evolutionary mating strategies, and age preferences in sexual partners may vary cross-culturally. There are also social theories for age differences in relationships as well as suggested reasons for 'alternative' age-hypogamous relationships. Age-disparate relationships have been documented for most of recorded history and have been regarded with a wide range of attitudes dependent on sociocultural norms and legal systems.[1]

Heterosexual relationships with age disparities have been observed with both men and women as the older or younger partner. In various cultures, older men and younger women often seek one another for sexual or marital relationships.[5] Older women sometimes date younger men as well,[6] and in both cases wealth and apparent physical attractiveness are often relevant.[7] Adolescent boys are generally sexually interested in adolescent girls and women somewhat older than they are.[8] Older men also display an interest in women of their own age.[9] However, research suggests that relationship patterns are more influenced by women's preferences than men's.[8][10][11]

Most heterosexual men marry women younger than they are, with the difference being between two and three years in Spain,[12] the UK reporting the difference to be on average about three years, and the US, two and a half.[13][14] The pattern was also confirmed for the rest of the world, with the gap being largest in Africa.[15] However, the number of women marrying younger men is rising. A study released in 2003 by the UK's Office for National Statistics concluded that the proportion of women in England and Wales marrying younger men rose from 15% to 26% between 1963 and 1998. Another study also showed a higher divorce rate as the age difference rose for when either the woman was older or the man was older.[16] A 2008 study, however, concluded that the difference is not significant.[17][18]

In August 2010, Michael Dunn of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, completed and released the results of a study on age disparity in heterosexual dating. Dunn concluded that "Not once across all ages and countries ... did females show a preference for males significantly younger than male preferences for females" and that there was a "consistent cross-cultural preference by women for at least same-age or significantly older men". A 2003 AARP study reported that only 34% of women over 39 years old were dating younger men.[19]

A 2011 study suggested that marriage of younger men by women is positively correlated with decreased longevity, particularly for the woman, though married individuals generally still have longer lifespans than singles.[20]

There are complex and diverse reasons that people enter into age-disparate relationships, and a recent review in the Journal of Family Theory and Review showed vast differences across contexts.[21] Explanations for age disparity usually focus on either the rational choice model or the analysis of demographic trends in a society.[12] The rational choice model suggests that people look for partners who can provide for them in their life (bread-winners); as men earn more as they get older, their partners will therefore prefer older men.[12] This factor is diminishing as more women enter the labor force. The demographic trends are concerned with the sex ratio in the society, the marriage squeeze, and migration patterns.[12] Another explanation concerns cultural values: the higher the value placed in having children, the higher the age gap will be.[15] Yet Canadian researchers have found that age-disparate couples are less likely to have children than similarly aged ones.[22] As people have chosen to marry later and remarriage becomes more common, the age differences between couples have increased as well.[12][17]

In a Brown University study, it has been noted that the social structure of a country determines the age difference between spouses more than any other factor.[23] One of the concerns of relationships with age disparities in some cultures is a perceived difference between people of different age ranges. These differences may be sexual, financial or social. Gender roles may complicate this even further. Socially, a society with a difference in wealth distribution between older and younger people may affect the dynamics of the relationship.[24]

Although the "cougar" trend, in which older women date much younger men, is often portrayed in the media as a widespread and established facet of modern Western culture, at least one academic study has found the concept to be a "myth". A British psychological study published in Evolution and Human Behavior in 2010 concluded that heterosexual men and women, in general, continued to follow traditional gender roles when searching for mates.[25] The study found that, as supported by other academic studies, most men preferred younger, "attractive" women, while most women, of any age, preferred successful, established men their age or older. The study found very few instances of older women pursuing much younger men and vice versa.[26] The study has been criticized, however, for limiting their results to online dating profiles, which are traditionally not used by those seeking older or younger partners, and for excluding the United States from the study.[27][28][29]

The evolutionary approach, based on the theories of Charles Darwin, attempts to explain age disparity in sexual relationships in terms of natural selection and sexual selection.[30][31] Within sexual selection, Darwin identified a further two mechanisms which are important factors in the evolution of sex differences (sexual dimorphism): intrasexual selection (involves competition with those of the same sex over access to mates) and intersexual choice (discriminative choice of mating partners).[32] Life history theory[33] (that includes Parental Investment Theory)[34] provides an explanation for the above mechanisms and strategies adopted by individuals, leading to age disparity in relationships. Life history theory posits that individuals have to divide energy and resources between activities (as energy and resources devoted to one task cannot be used for another task) and this is shaped by natural selection.[35]

Parental Investment Theory refers to the value that is placed on a potential mate based on reproductive potential and reproductive investment. The theory predicts that preferred mate choices have evolved to focus on reproductive potential and reproductive investment of members of the opposite sex.[34] This theory predicts both intrasexual selection and intersexual choice due to differences in parental investment; typically there is competition among members of the lower investing sex (generally males) over the parental investment of the higher investing sex (generally females) who will be more selective in their mate choice. However, human males tend to have more parental investment than do other mammal males (although females still tend to have more parental investment).[36] Thus, both sexes will have to compete and be selective in mate choices. These two theories explain why natural and sexual selection acts slightly differently on the two sexes so that they display different preferences. For example, different age preferences may be a result of sex differences in mate values assigned to the partner's sex at those ages.[34]

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