] It was completely common to have double digit age differences between partners in and around the Regency...No one would have batted an eye.

I *know* it was very common, but that doesn't make it right (admittedly from my 21st-century feminist POV). I remember reading once that you could tell how women's rights were doing in a particular time and place by the age at which women married, and the age of their husbands. The author claimed that in a more egalitarian society, women would be more likely to marry in their twenties to men close to their own age, while in a more sexist society they'd be married off to much older men while still in their teens. Personally, I think there's a lot of truth in this. Of course, the mitigating factor in S&S is Col. Brandon's goodness, and Marianne is not literally being *forced* to marry him, but it still bothers me! Also, no matter how happy their marriage, if Marianne makes it past her child-bearing years, she can look forward to at least 20 years of widowhood with very little chance of a *third* attachment, just like her mother.

] The age difference never bothered me (and I am sixteen) because I know several very nice men in their late twenties to early thirties, whom I am friends with.