First of all, I'm going to prove it to you, because it might have gone unnoticed before. To prevent spoiling you on any pairings, I will only mention their ages and the title, not their names. Also, these two people haven's necessarily ended up together, but they have shared a relationship and/or love triangle.
the Hunger Games: 16-18
the Selection: 17-19
Divergent: 16-18
Shatter Me: 17-18/19
Precious Stones Trilogy: 16-18
the Lunar Chronicles: 16-18, 18-23, 16-20, 17-19
Me Before You: 26-35
Delirium: 17-19
the 5th Wave: 16-18(19)
Of course, I left out the non-age difference books out here but just take a glance. See those first numbers? Those are the girls. See the second, higher ones? Those are their possible suitors.
And this isn't even about the age difference, really. I think it's a weird trend to make the boys older all the time, but it doesn't bother me in itself. What I wonder is what causes the girls to be the youngest every time. So to figure out, I set up some theories.
1. The girl is often the protagonist.
I mean, it makes sense, right? No one has a real problem with dating someone older. It's even a little attractive. The question of whether the boys have a problem with the age difference is never really touched on because a good chunk of these books is narrated solely by females. This would be a pretty innocent reason for this division.
2. Girls reach maturity earlier than boys.
Male readers, hold your fire because this is a biological fact. Girls' puberty starts earlier than boys', so also ends earlier. Maybe authors have merely found a simple way to even that out a bit. And this would be logical because young girls tend to look down on their male peers because they're still not acting like grown-ups.
What argues against this is that once you're 26, you have inarguably reached the end of puberty. In adult novels or books with adult main characters (the Great Gatsby with a 9-year gap), you still see a significant age difference and this theory does not apply to those.
3. Gender roles in our lingering society.
Here we are, feminists, this is a more questionable reason, but I think there might be some unconscious truth to it. It applies more to turning the roles around than the difference itself.
So, our lingering image of the man in a relationship comes down to the idea that he comforts, protects, and rationalizes the woman. Whether we like it or not, we still hold to the idea that the male protects and shields the female, which is similar to the role of old towards young. In short: our prejudice of the roles of men in relationships are similar to our prejudice of the roles of older people in relationships.
Now look at it the other way around. Picture Katniss as eighteen and Gale as sixteen. I think this immediately calls for a slightly foreign feeling, seeing an older girl in a relationship with a younger boy. Because we are so used to the idea of the old protecting the young, this might subconsciously cause us to think of Katniss as more 'nurturing' towards Gale. And this is just two years and the same phase of life. Take the Lunar Chronicles' age gap of 16-20 and the dynamic is even stronger. And possibly, a part of us then starts to see the older woman/girl as a person that we do see caring for a younger man/boy: a mother.
I hope that I'm not the only one who feels this subconscious drift in how we view women in relationships with younger men, but you also notice it in real life. We might still, outside of our own notice, view men as often stronger, but also more rational and experienced, and brand them as the one to shield and guide the younger female protagonist. And I think this is highly relevant and interesting, concerning how we picture young girls, in YA literature especially. I have been seeing a lot of stories where this girl is in a hard situation or just an important phase in her life, and the boy comes in as some sort of mender and savior.
4. It mimics reality.
I found this on Wikipedia, link down below:
the Hunger Games: 16-18
the Selection: 17-19
Divergent: 16-18
Shatter Me: 17-18/19
Precious Stones Trilogy: 16-18
the Lunar Chronicles: 16-18, 18-23, 16-20, 17-19
Me Before You: 26-35
Delirium: 17-19
the 5th Wave: 16-18(19)
Of course, I left out the non-age difference books out here but just take a glance. See those first numbers? Those are the girls. See the second, higher ones? Those are their possible suitors.
And this isn't even about the age difference, really. I think it's a weird trend to make the boys older all the time, but it doesn't bother me in itself. What I wonder is what causes the girls to be the youngest every time. So to figure out, I set up some theories.
1. The girl is often the protagonist.
I mean, it makes sense, right? No one has a real problem with dating someone older. It's even a little attractive. The question of whether the boys have a problem with the age difference is never really touched on because a good chunk of these books is narrated solely by females. This would be a pretty innocent reason for this division.
2. Girls reach maturity earlier than boys.
Male readers, hold your fire because this is a biological fact. Girls' puberty starts earlier than boys', so also ends earlier. Maybe authors have merely found a simple way to even that out a bit. And this would be logical because young girls tend to look down on their male peers because they're still not acting like grown-ups.
What argues against this is that once you're 26, you have inarguably reached the end of puberty. In adult novels or books with adult main characters (the Great Gatsby with a 9-year gap), you still see a significant age difference and this theory does not apply to those.
3. Gender roles in our lingering society.
Here we are, feminists, this is a more questionable reason, but I think there might be some unconscious truth to it. It applies more to turning the roles around than the difference itself.
So, our lingering image of the man in a relationship comes down to the idea that he comforts, protects, and rationalizes the woman. Whether we like it or not, we still hold to the idea that the male protects and shields the female, which is similar to the role of old towards young. In short: our prejudice of the roles of men in relationships are similar to our prejudice of the roles of older people in relationships.
Now look at it the other way around. Picture Katniss as eighteen and Gale as sixteen. I think this immediately calls for a slightly foreign feeling, seeing an older girl in a relationship with a younger boy. Because we are so used to the idea of the old protecting the young, this might subconsciously cause us to think of Katniss as more 'nurturing' towards Gale. And this is just two years and the same phase of life. Take the Lunar Chronicles' age gap of 16-20 and the dynamic is even stronger. And possibly, a part of us then starts to see the older woman/girl as a person that we do see caring for a younger man/boy: a mother.
I hope that I'm not the only one who feels this subconscious drift in how we view women in relationships with younger men, but you also notice it in real life. We might still, outside of our own notice, view men as often stronger, but also more rational and experienced, and brand them as the one to shield and guide the younger female protagonist. And I think this is highly relevant and interesting, concerning how we picture young girls, in YA literature especially. I have been seeing a lot of stories where this girl is in a hard situation or just an important phase in her life, and the boy comes in as some sort of mender and savior.
4. It mimics reality.
I found this on Wikipedia, link down below:
5. It's a combination of all of the above.
This is, as always, the most realistic conjecture. But no matter the reason for the reappearing trend, I am very much looking forward to a YA novel with a two year older girl. Feel free to discuss along in the comments and I hope you found this an interesting subject to broach.
Wikipedia link: Age Disparity in Sexual Relationships
All the ages come from the .wikia.com pages of the books (except Me Before You), which should be relatively easy to find by googling ["Series title" wikia].
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