I would genuinely like to hear what actual seasoned fathers on CathInfo have to say about it. Fathers with girls in the 12-18 year age range, but really any father with girls, even girls that have already left the coop. I’ve heard enough from unmarried or newly married men on the subject. I hesitate to make yet another thread on it but it sure would be nice if it wasn’t anonymous. The anonymous section just kills it.

Married men with daughters, would you entertain a man in his 30’s asking to court your 14 year old daughter? What about 16?

It is a pertinent conversation, if only it could be approached without accusations and insults.

My girls are still too sheltered at that age. They aren't "out in the world" yet. They don't know the birds & bees yet. Also, their homeschool workload gets pretty serious around age 15 or 16. We're talking college classes, advanced AP classes, etc.
In our particular family (due to genetics, etc.) we are very high IQ, so my wife and I decided to have some decently high standards for our children's homeschool education.

In modern day America, the culture and country in which we live, it is EXPECTED for a person to complete high school. That is one thing that has changed from the Middle Ages.
I'm not saying they have to go to college (that is the next step many people take -- they want the girl to not just have a HS diploma, but a college degree as well "just in case")

But I think having a high school diploma isn't too much to ask.

As for honorable courtship at 14 or 16, that would totally distract a girl from what she needs to be learning, studying, and doing during her "finishing off" period before she comes of age. But the finishing off period is something I never thought about until a few years ago.

Try to consider the parents point of view. You have children. You are responsible for them. You want them to be happy. You love them. You want to teach them the important things you know about the world, so they don't have to learn things the hard way. HOW DO YOU DO THAT IF THEY COULD BE GONE AT 16?
Just for starters, MANY topics you can't introduce until you've cleared the prerequisite course, "Birds & Bees 101". And do you REALLY want to take a totally innocent girl and introduce things to them they REALLY don't need to think or worry about?
I'm not going to introduce deep adult topics too early just so they can grow up a few years early. That's not necessary at all.

I don't just throw my kids into the deep end of knowledge, or the world, and hope they swim. I allow them to be kids when they're kids. (except I do teach them to work and practice self-mortification -- doing what you don't want to do -- from an early age)
I insist they learn all the basics, including knowing how to cook, clean, etc. Both boys and girls. But I allow them time to play, have fun, and be kids. I'm preparing them for a REALISTIC future -- which, let's be honest, will be mostly work and certainly not all fun & games.

But no, I don't teach my daughters to have a GenZ-like attitude towards age. As homeschoolers, my kids aren't obsessed with limiting all socializing to a narrow age range plus 2 years and minus 2 years from their own age. That's not realistic at all. Just look at any office or workplace. Or convent, monastery, etc. Nowhere in the real world are you sectioned off with 30 or 50 people born in the same year as you. Public school is artificial as hell, designed to create mindless drones for corporate offices, and destructive in every way.

I'm all for preparing my children with the proper information at the proper age. But until they have to go study/work/etc. out there in the world, they don't need to know all the gritty details about men and how the world works.

Maybe the answer would be different for some public school girls whose innocence was taken away years earlier -- both in terms of knowledge and experience -- but neither of those things apply to my Trad, homeschooled daughters.

Nowhere in human history do we see the normalization of the opposition to age gaps outside of the late 20th century and feminism.

Aristotle is just chosen as being representative of the wisdom of all ages.

St. Thomas Aquinas uses him as the framework for his entire summa.

So to run him down like that shows how totally ruined your mind is by the sins of the modern age.

Please get back in the kitchen and off the internet.

Your husband and family need you doing more productive things than this.

What opposition to age gaps?  People will consider the age gap in a real situation. Do you have a real situation you are talking about?

Was Aristotle tempted by women like men are today?

Aristotle was talking about ideals based on the understanding that at 18 and 37 the peak of their genders would come at the equivalent time.  Was he only basing this on child rearing?  if yes then what would society do with all the women who are alive way past the death of their husband.  If he died at 80, she would only be 61 and would probably live another 20 years without him.  Would that then truly be an ideal having a population of women who would have to be cared for by the rest of society?  When we talk about these things we sometimes do need to pay attention to the whole picture.  Thoughts?

What opposition to age gaps?  People will consider the age gap in a real situation. Do you have a real situation you are talking about?

Was Aristotle tempted by women like men are today?

Aristotle was talking about ideals based on the understanding that at 18 and 37 the peak of their genders would come at the equivalent time.  Was he only basing this on child rearing?  if yes then what would society do with all the women who are alive way past the death of their husband.  If he died at 80, she would only be 61 and would probably live another 20 years without him.  Would that then truly be an ideal having a population of women who would have to be cared for by the rest of society?  When we talk about these things we sometimes do need to pay attention to the whole picture.  Thoughts?

Literally every society before the twentieth society and outside the US especially lived a more communal,  life where they cared for their elderly.

The whole discussion of 14-16 yr old women getting married is impractical and highly unlikely.  

The most probable scenario is this:  A 32 yr old man wants to court a 22 yrs old woman.  Yes or no?  Why or why not?