Don’t know where you got your info, pop_bar_a.
Were you dating then?
Girls often started even younger back then. Many started dating at 18. And it was not unheard of to have a 17 year old date, although it was rare.
Seminary in Israel was in its infancy then; the vast majority of girls were home, and started dating early.
It would be interesting to have some real professionals crunch the numbers and try to make some sort of accurate assessment of what’s been going on in the shidduch world over the years.
Mostly we’re working with anecdotal evidence.