] ] Marianne is in my mind no different than the average 17 year old of her time, or of our time, in her view of age. In fact, she would fit right into our youth-obsessed culture,

] As a 17 year old, I feel that it is sort-of my duty to say that it isn't all that typical for someone our age to consider a 35-year-old old.

These days it would certainly raise eyebrows for a 17-year-old and a 35-year-old to have any sort of romantic intentions towards each other. But back in those times, it was not uncommon for such an age discrepancy to exist in couples. Even Sir John and Lady Middleton have a big age difference--she's 26 and he's 40, so they would have been 19 and 33 when they married (assuming that with a six year old child, they've been married at least 7 years).