BlackFriar said:
You can take this comment for what it is worth. But at least listen to what I say:
100+/- years ago...men in their 20s and 30s were marrying 14-17 year old girls. 40 years ago, 30 year old men still dated, married and impregnated 16/17 year old girls. (My parents did this.) Now...post 2010. Parents can give hormones to their kids and try to change their gender or tell them it is completely normal for kids to do this.
If you'd think about it for a second, you'd realize that more things have changed, not just "acceptable dating age".
100 years ago, tight-knit societies still existed and actually consisted a good part of groups of people in the West. Industrial revolution has already kicked in and things have started to change, but the values were still in place and people, for the most part, stayed among their relatives in these small places where everybody knew each other.
Imagine you're living in such a place, you have a family and a teenage daughter. When you hear that Joe, an established farmer from the other end of town, would like to marry your daughter, you'd probably hear it from him, because he'd ask your permission first. Even if not, you probably know the guy or his parents, and know he's a solid, responsible guy. So, when 25 year old Joe wants to marry your 15-year-old daughter, you know that she will be with a reasonable, hard-working man who will provide for her and your inevitable grandchildren - because if not, everybody knows that you will learn, sooner or later, from her or from the neighbors that something is wrong, and Joe will have sworn enemies in you and your other family members. Meanwhile, if some drifter wanted to seduce your daughter, you'd rightfully chase him away with a shotgun.
Today, in our globalist society, things have changed. People constantly come and go from place to place, talk through the internet like we're doing now, and as a rule of thumb, the family ties are much weaker now. So, potential predators don't have to worry about angry family members going after them, but instead are threatened by laws of consent and sexual offender registry. How do you imagine it working now? Today, if a father of a teenage daughter hears of a much older man trying to "court" her, he knows that marriage and successful family is out of the question, not only because we're conditioned with education cycle lasting half of our lifetimes and people becoming de-facto adults near 30, but mostly because the society is much more loose, much more dynamic, and much more prone to deviancy than before. People not only know that it's all about sex for its own sake, but they ENCOURAGE it, and at the same time trying, futilely, to shield their children from it until it's too late, the bird flies out of the nest into the world.
Also, don't forget about contraceptives and how much of a change they were.