Understanding Ellen White

Statement 7: Great difference in age of marriage partners

A cause of generational decline is marriages between men and women “whose ages widely differ.” Marriages between “old men” and “young wives” result in men living longer, while the wife’s life may be shortened by the burden of caring for an aging husband. ³⁴ Conversely, when young men marry older women, their children may be born with physical and mental weaknesses. ³⁵ This is abundantly documented today. As a woman’s age at childbearing increases, the likelihood of birth defects, particularly Down syndrome, also increases. ³⁶ Remarkably, White also implies detrimental effects to children of older men who father children by younger women. ³⁷ Only long after she wrote was it scientifically established that older fathers also increase the risk of birth defects and autism. ³⁸ On this topic, White’s instruction appears to have been in advance of the scientific knowledge of her day. UEGW 185.3

Her statements about spouses of widely differing ages do not suggest that such marriages are always ill-advised. She specifically approved of several such marriages, suggesting that other factors can outweigh the issue of age differences. ³⁹ For example, W. C. White was forty when he married Ethel May Lacey, twenty-one. She bore him five children, the youngest when she was forty and he was fifty-nine. ⁴⁰ UEGW 185.4