Shouldn’t they happen at around the same age?
In: 9
Ugh…answering this question is going to be messy. When we discuss why evolution has selected for some traits in humans over others, we’re talking about the situations humans most often found themselves in for most of our existence. And those situations are much darker than our situation today.
It was wasn’t too uncommon for girls to be married off at a young age a few hundred years ago, and still happens in some corners of the world. It’s not a stretch to extrapolate that this used to be the norm going back further into pre history when humans did most of their evolving.
To raise children to adulthood requires time and energy from the mother, and resources and physical protection from the father since a pregnant woman is less capable of gathering resources safely. It’s easier for females to uphold their requirements at a younger age. While males would on average take more time to accumulate resources/strength to uphold their end. Thus evolution would select for males entering the game at a later stage.
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