>I know of several "older men" who have married younger women... A good tip to look for to explain some odd age gaps in marriage in the post Civil War era is that when Civil War Veterans pension rules were relaxed, circa 1890-1906, this caused a rash of young women marrying old vets so they'd get the pension money even after the vet died. This supposedly resulted in many young brides married to very old men in cases that normally we'd look at from a genealogy point of view as being suspect and unlikely. I've never seen it discussed as a genealogy tip but realized this was something to look for when I heard a reference to the old vets marrying young brides on a History Channel show that mentioned the act and the wave of marriages of teens to old men that followed this. An explanation of Civil War pensions is found here: http://www.civilwarhome.com/pensions.htm While pensions were offered previously for disabilities, it was the 1890 act or the 1906 revision to allow old age as a disability that encouraged the May/December marriages. "In 1890 the most notable revision in the Federal pension law occurred: the Dependent Pension Act. A result of the intense lobbying effort of the veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, this statute removed the link between pensions and service-related injuries, allowing any veteran who had served honorably to qualify for a pension if at some time he became disabled for manual labor. By 1906 old age alone became sufficient justification to receive a pension." Before that pensions were there for disabilities and for widows and dependants. But the 1890 act opened a door that probably left a lot of happy old men tended by happy young wives who were little more than caretakers for a few years before drawing a pension for life. I've seen some cases where it appears that some of these marriages were arranged to cousins to help funnel money back into the family. Once you know to look for these kind of marriages you'll probably think twice next time you see a marriage with a suspiciously large gap in age to see if it fits as a Civil War vet with a pension. This probably helped carry some families through the Depression since any single vets still living by the late 1920's offered a guaranteed meal ticket. Marrying off a daughter to an old uncle could have put food on the table for the whole family. The pensions probably also explain some elderly relatives living with families on old census records where you might even see unrelated elderly vets taken in by a family.