MovieChat Forums > Gone with the Wind (1940) Discussion > Rhett was 17 years older than Scarlett?!

Rhett was 17 years older than Scarlett?!

posted 9 years ago by hellotrouble
62 replies | jump to latest

It's never specified in the movie but in the book it's said at the end that Scarlett is 28 and Rhett is 45. Maybe at those ages it's not too bad, but it's very weird when you think that when they first met Scarlett was 16 and Rhett was 33?! I mean, nowadays a 33-year-old man being attracted to a 16-year-old girl would be seen as perverted and creepy. Rhett was older than Scarlett's mother. Was this just not that big of a deal and more normal in that time period? That's all I can think. I love the book, but at the same time it kind of weirds me out that Rhett is that much older than her, especially when Scarlett was still a teenager.

[–] Gd5150 (11582) a year ago

Democrats are 1st in line to call out the “creepiness” by todays standards, of Rhett being 33 and Scarlett being 16.

If it was a 7yo Charlie they’d be applauding it.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7614) a year ago

Also just gotta say that there wasn't highschool back then and women didn't have equal rights to men. For instance, durring the Civil War started it was forbidden for women to join the army. There were women who did it but they disguised themselves as men. Point being, we can get outraged at how things were in the past but what we should do is just be thankful things have changed.

[–] PaladinNJ (21383) a year ago

Wasn't that uncommon back then. In some cultures brides would be given away in their early teens to much older men.

[–] Corbell (10995) a year ago

My mom married young, and told me it was because she was anxious to get out of her fathers house, he was fairly mean.

Back then, yes, it was supposedly less equal, but, the worlds of men adn women were also more seperated.

A woman, even a YOUNG woman, married, with children or children on teh way, became the Homemaker and was in charge of the household. And with the husband off working long days, the woman would often end up involved in a community of outside activities that gave them quite a bit of independence or as my mom put it, "her own life".

It is also worth noting that a younger woman marrying an older man, is likely to outlive him, inhereting his money and becomingg in charge of the family.

Years ago, I would spend time with my wifes family, and it was interesting to see her grandmother, who was a young woman back in the late 1940s, reigning over the family.

People that assume that the woman of those marriages were.... exploited, really have never met any women from that time.

LOL. And if the man had a job that required travel, or god forbid going overseas? The woman could be, would be quite independent.