# Historical inaccuracies that are not minor **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 16, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057 "2012-05-16T03:11:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 134
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057/134 "2012-05-20T22:20:52Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Which is one reason why, on average, the man was generally older than the woman. > > If there’s one thing I’ve learned studying history, it’s that averages can be misleading. I would imagine there was great variation between the city and the countryside, and between one class and another. > > I know of a number of cases throughout Europe and the American colonies (and early United States) where the man was considerably senior to his wife, and she married while still in her teens. There’s also a famous 19th-century painting of a wedding in a Russian Orthodox church, in which the groom is clearly middle-aged and his bride is maybe 14. Such matches were far more common than one today might think. Not a child-bride case, but [Frances Folsom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Folsom_Cleveland_Preston) married President Grover Cleveland when she was 21 and he was 49 (and practically her stepfather). Nobody appeared squicked at the time. What squicked people out (or so the Republicans claimed to be) was Cleveland (possibly) having [sired a bastard.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland#Campaign_against_Blaine) --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-inaccuracies-that-are-not-minor/622057)._