Generally speaking, women mature and age faster than men. In a marriage, the man should generally be five, six, or even seven to eight years older than the woman, as far as physical age is concerned. The woman matures five years ahead of the man and ages about ten years faster than he does. This is true as far as physiological development is concerned.
On the other hand, there is the mental development of the human life. Man has an intellectual age. It is possible for a person to be physically matured yet remain intellectually a child. It is possible for him to be old in the body but young in the mind. A man can be in his thirties physically but act as if he were in his twenties mentally. In that sense he is still young. Among Christians, if a brother’s mental maturity exceeds that of a sister, it may not be a matter of concern for the brother to be younger than the sister in age.
The matter lies in whether one pays more attention to the physical age or the mental age. If physical age is the primary concern, it is better for the brother to be older than the sister. If mental age is the primary concern, it is all right for a sister to be older than a brother. This is something we cannot decide for a couple; they have to consider it for themselves. Some pay more attention to the physical aspect and others to the mental aspect. There is no regulation or law as far as age is concerned.
The above five items are related to the physiological aspect of human life. Now we want to talk about the psychological aspect of a person. In other words, we want to talk about the question of personality.
For a marriage to be healthy, there must be not only natural attraction but also compatibility or agreement in personality. One can also say that there must be compatibility in interests or likes. If there is no compatibility in personality or interests in a marriage, sooner or later there will be no peace in the family, and both parties will suffer. A new believer must realize that natural attraction is temporary, but compatibility of character is something that lasts.
Among unbelievers, the kind of love described in their romance novels is always a matter of natural attraction. But this is not the kind of love spoken of in the Bible. Love does include natural attraction, but natural attraction may not be love. There is natural attraction in love, but there is also compatibility of personality in love. There are two basic conditions or, you may say, two basic ingredients of love: One ingredient is natural attraction; the other ingredient is compatibility and similarity of personality and interests.
Someone may be attractive to you as far as outward appearance is concerned, but you may not like him at all because what he does is totally the opposite of your taste. He may not like what you like, and you may not like what he likes. This shows that there is an incompatibility in personality.
A husband or wife may be very affectionate in a family. He or she may like people very much and be very generous to people. He or she may go out of the way to provide warm hospitality to people. But the other party may be quite cold toward people. He or she may not be completely void of love, but an equal amount of affection is not found in him or her. Immediately, we can see that the problem is with their personalities. Suppose you are a person who is very affectionate toward others. You are generous and warm. Suppose you marry a husband who is also very loving and affectionate towards people. Both of you will find great interest in meeting people. You will feel that life is easy. Whenever you turn to the west, you will find the tide flowing to the west. You will always be riding in the direction of the tide. But if the other party is cold and frigid toward people, he will pull in one direction while you pull in the other direction. You will feel that you are tolerating him, and he will feel that he is tolerating you. When you behave a certain way, he may feel that it is too much and that he is tolerating you. When he behaves a certain way, you may feel that he is too stingy and that you are tolerating him. This is not very good.