Dating age rule reddit

It’s defined ten times on UrbanDictionary, gets its own section in Wikipedia’s page on age disparity in sexual relationships, is espoused by Barney Stinson on “ How I Met Your Mother” and is referenced by The Washington Post and The Awl.īut the rule of seven may not actually describe what people consider acceptable. Now, the half-your-age plus seven rule has entered the cultural lexicon.

Muhammad might not have been the most reliable relationship counselor, though he was also concerned about height disparity: “a tall man married to a too short woman, or vice versa … looked odd, not matched,” he preached. When Malcolm X met his future wife Betty Sanders, he interpreted the fact that their ages fit the rule of seven as a sign that they were destined for each other. The rule also appears in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In the 1950s, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad “taught that a wife’s ideal age was half the man’s age plus seven” this age gap should make up for women’s maturing more quickly than men, as well as ensure that the husband was sufficiently authoritative over his wife.