The Case for Marrying an Older Man: Editor Reviews
On March 27th, The Cut published an essay titled “The Case for Marrying an Older Man“ by Gracie Sophia Christie. The writer shares how she realized during her undergraduate years at Harvard that her greatest advantage as a woman was her youth.
She claims to have leveraged this to seduce and marry an older French man, despite facing harsh criticism from both her friends and her husband’s female colleagues. However, Christie now enjoys a life of leisure, benefiting from her husband’s wealth and seniority, which allowed her to quit her job and pursue writing full-time.
She contrasts her lifestyle with that of her friends, who are in relationships with men their age—partners she believes don’t pull their weight, leaving these women in unfulfilling and unequal relationships.
However, she does acknowledge the downsides of her marriage, including her strong dependence on her husband and concerns about how much of her identity is shaped by him. Ultimately, she criticizes feminism, arguing that it failed to provide her with something her older husband did—ease.
The essay received heavy criticism, not just for its perspective but also for its writing style. Many labeled Christie a misogynist, but beyond that, they dismissed her as a poor writer. One reader brutally commented, “This piece desperately needed an editor. I feel like I just read a 17-year-old girl’s diary.” Another sarcastically quipped, “Please don’t ever write again”—ironically signed off as William Shakespeare.
A tweet mocking the writing style received over 12,000 likes, with one reader remarking that becoming a full-time writer may not have been the best choice for her. A particularly scathing comment quoted Christie’s own words, “For I already won something like the lotto when he married me,” before dismissing it as sounding like it was written by a 13-year-old. Others bluntly stated, “This is bad, and you should feel bad.”
Many assume Christie will dismiss these writing critiques as jealousy or personal attacks, and in some cases, they might be right. However, the real question remains: Is the writing actually bad? And if so, why?
Siobhan Brier Aguilar, a professional writer, editor, and translator, set out to explore this issue. In her analysis, she notes that the main flaw in the essay was its framing. It was presented as an opinion piece but read like a novel. Ideally, it could have been framed as fiction—a short story rather than a persuasive argument. Alternatively, had Christie intended it as a personal essay, she could have simply shared her experience without pushing a thesis.
The opening paragraphs set the tone with a literary, almost dreamlike style:
“In the summer in the south of France, my husband and I like to play—rather badly—the lottery. We take long scorching walks to the village, gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat, kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in nor do I check the winning numbers, for I already won something like the lotto with its gifts and its curses when he married me. He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.”
Since this was published in The Cut, an online publication that thrives on clicks and engagement, the essay’s controversial take ensured it would get plenty of attention. From that perspective, the piece was a success.
However, the structural choice to frame it as an opinion piece led to other issues. One reader criticized the essay by saying, “Love is not a sum of transactions, and every sentence needs a subject and an object. Please correct these mistakes before that novel comes out.” While Aguilar disagrees with this take, she understands where it’s coming from. Readers expected a well-structured opinion piece but were instead met with what felt like a memoir masquerading as an argument.
Unlike personal essays or fiction, opinion pieces have stricter grammar and structure rules. Writers of novels and memoirs can break these rules deliberately—as long as the stylistic choices serve a purpose. When done well, poetic license allows bending the rules to enhance tone, voice, and character development. However, the issue arises when it seems accidental rather than intentional.
Ultimately, whether or not the writing is bad depends on how it’s judged. If viewed as an opinion piece, it falls short due to its novelistic style. If seen as fiction or a memoir, its flaws might be more forgivable. Either way, it’s clear that while Christie’s perspective caused a stir, it was her writing style that fueled the harshest backlash.
So, the question isn’t just about whether a rule was broken, but rather about the intentionality behind breaking it. Let’s not dismiss her poetic license just yet. Instead, let’s do a line edit and clean up grammatical errors without stripping away the writer’s whimsical, romantic tone, which actually works well in some areas.
Grammarly flags several comma splices, but honestly, that’s not always a dealbreaker. Some writers use commas—or omit them—on purpose to control pacing, guiding the reader on when to pause or absorb something. Over-relying on grammar rules can sometimes make writing feel stale or robotic, so I’d probably leave most of those commas in.
However, there are some grammar mistakes that need fixing. For instance, there’s an issue with relative pronouns. The sentence, “There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest,” should actually use “that” instead of “which”. Why? Because “that” introduces a restrictive clause—one that is necessary to the sentence’s meaning—whereas “which” is used for non-essential information.
Without the clause, the sentence would simply read, “There is no brand of feminism,” which changes the meaning entirely. Another example is the sentence, “I live in an apartment whose rent he pays, and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him.” Here, “whose” suggests the apartment is being personified, which isn’t the case. A clearer revision would be, “I live in an apartment where he pays the rent.”
There are also some unclear antecedents. For instance, in the line, “I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own.” It’s unclear whether “my own” refers to her own advantage or her own disadvantage. This kind of vagueness can make an essay feel too airy and undermine its clarity, which is especially important in an opinion piece where the writer is trying to prove a thesis.
Another aspect I’d revise is the use of literary references. When done well, references to classic literature can enrich a piece, providing depth and lending the writer ethos—a rhetorical technique that builds credibility by demonstrating knowledge and expertise.
A well-placed allusion can subtly signal that the author has done their research. However, when overused or unnecessary, references can feel forced—almost like the writer is trying too hard to impress. In James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers, he warns against hitting readers over the head with research, as it can pull them out of the writing and disrupt the flow.
Now, let’s examine Christie’s allusions. She writes: “I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me. Given their intelligence, perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic whale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of vampiric boyfriends, labor at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously a decline in status as we aged like a looming eclipse.”
First, the suggestion that the only reason other women her age weren’t seeking older, wealthier partners is because they were in denial or uninformed comes across as condescending. Second, it’s hard to believe that her biological clock worries stemmed from reading Victorian novels.
Many of her critiques of feminism—and her views on womanhood—seem to be modern, internet-influenced, which is fine, but she should be honest about what actually shaped her thinking. For example, later in the essay, she writes, “I find a post on Reddit where 5,000 men try to define a woman’s touch.” That feels like a more genuine influence on her perspective than Victorian literature.
Now, let’s put my English degree to work and break down these literary references. When she mentions “vampiric boyfriends,” she’s likely referencing Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë—a jealous, cruel, and obsessive character. The mention of “labor at the office and in the hospital” might reference Middlemarch by George Eliot, where Dorothea Brooke marries an older, wealthier man but feels stifled and later finds fulfillment in volunteer work at a hospital.
However, using Middlemarch in an essay promoting marrying older men is ironic because Dorothea was miserable in her marriage and only found happiness after her husband died, allowing her to marry a starving artist her age. If the writer meant a different novel, I’d ask her to clarify.
Another reference I liked was when she described herself in college as a “little Bovary,” pointing to Emma Bovary from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Emma was romantic and materialistic, hoping a wealthy husband would rescue her from boredom. But this reference is odd because Emma’s obsession with romance and money led her to multiple affairs, debt, financial ruin, and ultimately, suicide. If you’re arguing in favor of marrying an older, wealthier man, why reference a character whose similar mindset destroyed her?
Now, let’s talk about Lolita. Christie mentions Lolita multiple times, referencing her undergrad work on Nabokov and directly quoting, “You took advantage of my disadvantage.” She really wants us to get this reference, which is risky. Lolita is a story about a middle-aged man grooming and abusing a 12-year-old girl. The author of this essay met her husband at 20, while he was 30—a fully consensual, adult relationship. So, invoking Lolita in this context is a dangerous choice.
It risks making her relationship sound predatory, which it isn’t. More importantly, it’s disrespectful—both to her husband (who likely wouldn’t appreciate being compared to Humbert Humbert) and to survivors of grooming and abuse. If Lolita is referenced, it needs to be careful, deliberate, and thoughtful. But in this essay, like many of her allusions, it feels clumsy and forced.
If I were Christie’s editor, I’d suggest cutting several references, refining the grammar, and ensuring her argument remains clear and convincing. And, honestly? I’d tell her to stay off Twitter for a bit—because, girl, they’re coming for her.
Over this paragraph, she’s saying that she wants to use her beauty and her youth to her advantage to marry into a life of luxury. She says, “So naturally, I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room, sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flesh ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to progress, but older men still desired those things.”
We aren’t talking about content, the Nabokov paper thing—we already decided we’re going to take that out. It will be an easy deletion because it does nothing to move the story forward, except maybe to clarify that she was in the business library despite being an English student.
Here, we have a malapropism when she says she has a flesh ponytail. A malapropism is when the writer uses a homophone or a word that sounds like or sort of sounds like the correct word but has a completely different meaning. These are most famously employed by Shakespeare.
Remember when I said that grammar rules can be broken, so long as the writer does it deliberately and in service of a greater intention? Well, when Shakespeare uses malapropisms, they’re usually only in the dialogue of certain characters. He uses malapropisms for humor, silly miscommunications, or to show that a certain character is uneducated or meant for comic relief.
In this case, when she said flesh ponytail, I believe she either meant full or lush, or maybe she combined those two words. I don’t like to blame the editor because we don’t know what state the essay was in when the editor got it, but it was probably their job to catch that one. Either way, it’s one word, it’s not that big of a deal.
However, I am seeing some issues with fact-checking. Women are born with a finite number of eggs, and they gradually deplete over time. This is different from men, who continuously produce sperm, even though the quality of that sperm does decline with age. So, the most eggs a woman will ever have is when she is a young fetus. Unless this author was at about 20 weeks gestation when she wrote this, the “most of my eggs” line is not accurate and should be deleted.
There is a longstanding joke in the writing world about women written by men, and examples usually showcase female characters being hyper-aware of their own breasts at all times or describing themselves in an overly sexual way, instead of just having a human experience. Here are some examples:
“When she’d stopped crying, Meline composed herself before the mirror. Her skin looked blotchy, her breasts, of which she was normally proud, had withdrawn into themselves, as if depressed. Meline knew that the self-appraisal might not be accurate.”
I love that he added that last line—we had to clarify, “Don’t worry, she’s still hot.”
Another example:
“I like her. I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile.”
This type of writing is an example of the male gaze in literature, a concept coined by film critic Laura Mulvey, referring to women characters being portrayed as objects of men’s desire rather than subjects themselves. While male writers often get flack for this, women can also write in a misogynistic way.
For example, in this essay, this paragraph is an example of a woman writing with the male gaze. A good test to see if you’re writing in a gendered, stereotypical way is to swap the gender roles and see if the writing sounds silly.
Here’s a gender-reversed version:
“In one cavernous, well-appointed room, sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelorettes. I had a high sperm count, a low hairline, sexual purity, and a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to tradition, but older women still desired those things.”
Would a male audience feel alienated by that? You decide.
I’ve been harping on this writer, but there are some things I genuinely like about the essay. When her voice works, it works really well. Some lines are well-written, expressive, and artistic, like this one:
“The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective the way a falling leaf can make you look up—beautiful.”
Or when she describes her husband:
“I went to him, asked him for a cigarette, a date. Days later, a second one, where I discovered he was a person—potentially my favorite—kind, funny, clever, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.”
Her best writing shines through when she talks about her husband with love and vulnerability. In the last paragraph, she writes:
“Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride. I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us, like our romance. His voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young. He feared he would lose me.”
That’s touching, it’s honest, and I wish she had leaned more into this side of her story, rather than taking such a stubborn stance in her essay. Instead, she opened the door for people to comment that her husband will cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman, which seems cruel and unfair.
So, is she a bad writer? I don’t think so. But her voice in this opinion essay comes across as immature and unlikable. Likability matters, especially in personal brand writing.
For example, she writes:
“I could study all I want, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still, my fierce disadvantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans—my youth, the newness of my face and body.”
Thinking that your greatest advantage is your body or age is sad and unhealthy. It comes across as insecure.
Maturity is about coming to peace with universal truths—our mortality, our aging bodies, our big consciousnesses tied to an expiring form. This essay, however, adds emotional baggage that makes those realities feel worse.
When I asked myself if the point of the essay was to argue in favor of marrying an older man or to brag about her own relationship and life, I noticed sections where she randomly inserts facts about herself that do nothing to prove her thesis or move the narrative forward. For instance, when a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside you—they make you feel cynical and obscene.
How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older, and income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her. At minimum, he has more connections and experience. She, on the other hand, has skin, energy, sex—maybe she gets a Birkin, maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands casts an elucid light on the calculations we all make in love, whether we admit it or not.
You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract—that, like I did, comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose to the greater essay. The only reason she might include that detail is to paint herself favorably, and the essay is full of instances like these.
It makes me wonder—how much is she trying to prove that marrying older was the right decision, and how much is she trying to convince herself? There are moments when, if I were a friend, I would genuinely worry about her emotional tenacity and mental health.
Like when she says, “Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years.” Thinking your best years are behind you sounds like a fast track to depression. It also sounds like a fallacy from a young person who believes her best attribute is her youthful body.
Interestingly, bragging about yourself and your life often goes hand in hand with deep-set insecurity—both are symptoms of an inflated ego. However, I see the seeds of a more mature person emerging. There are sentences where she recognizes the value in other people’s relationships, not just her own. She says, “On occasion, I meet a nice couple who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me.” That’s a necessary inclusion, one I wish she explored further.
I don’t think this writer should never write again—I would never encourage that. Writing, at its best, is a tool for catharsis and self-expression, and it shouldn’t be gatekept. In fact, I believe if she channeled this voice and these attributes into a short story, assigning them to a character instead of herself, people might celebrate it.
Just like we celebrate the main character in My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh—in fiction, we don’t always need to like the characters the way we do with a personal brand. The same frustrating qualities could be read as a statement on materialism or transactional relationships—like a baby for a Birkin. Instead of the reader pointing at the writer and laughing at her, they could stand together, pointing at the character, laughing with her.
This writer mentions in her Twitter bio that she’s writing a novel, and I’d encourage her to keep at it. She shouldn’t be discouraged by how this essay was received. Many of these criticisms wouldn’t apply to her fiction, if done well. By done well, I mean the character with immature traits needs to grow—if they stay stagnant, it will seem like the story endorses immaturity.
Now, I don’t know this woman. I don’t know her husband. I’m not here to judge their relationship or whether they’re getting a fair trade. I personally disagree with many of her takes on relationships and feminism—but who cares? I’m not here to convince her. I’m her editor, not her mother. That said, personal decisions inevitably influence our work.
The only moment in this essay that surprised me was when she revealed she’s 27. Up until then, I thought I was reading something written by a precocious 19-year-old. I realized that many of the mistakes she made—boasting about her life, thinking a 21-year-old is in her prime, assuming her experience applies to everyone, dismissing criticism as denial, and hammering in classic literature references—these are just signs of immaturity.
Talking about your life positively without sounding pretentious, sharing lessons without coming across as preachy—these are complex social skills that take time to master. Many don’t truly develop them until their late 20s. And I do wonder—did her decision to marry into the life she wanted instead of building it herself somehow stunt her growth? It reminds me of the concept of “choose your hard.” It’s hard to eat well every day, but it’s also hard to suffer health issues from poor nutrition. Either way, you pick your struggle.
She’s right—it’s hard to make money as a young woman in her 20s. It’s hard to build a career as an artist without financial support. It’s hard to be in a relationship with someone just as young and clueless as you. It’s also hard to sacrifice comfort in exchange for growth. But it’s also hard to stunt your artistic development and have your writing publicly mocked for sounding juvenile. Maybe it’s helpful to be a young woman when trying to get into a bar, but it doesn’t do much when trying to create great art. It seems this author tried to avoid something hard and ended up exchanging it for something else hard.
Christe wrote, “I could diligently craft an ideal existence over years and years of sleepless nights and industry, or I could just marry it early.” That’s tempting, but those years of sleepless nights aren’t just about amassing wealth—they’re when a person grows. You can’t marry into personal growth. The only way to build your sense of self is through facing challenges and overcoming them. That’s it. There’s no shortcut.
Becoming a great artist isn’t just about talent—it’s about grit. It reminds me of Whiplash, when Andrew Neiman asks Terence Fletcher, “Isn’t there a line? Maybe you go too far, and you discourage the next Charlie Parker from ever becoming Charlie Parker?” And Fletcher responds, “No, because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged.”
My recommendation to this writer? Look at the criticism, and instead of dismissing it, use it to grow. I hope this is just a small chapter in her journey, and that she comes out on the other side better for it.
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