artchill, I’m curious as to how many people you know who are in an abusive message directly as a result of the age gap awareness. As far as I know, people have always been getting into abusive marriages.
If, in fact, people are settling as a result of the crisis, that should be dealt with also, but the crisis shouldn’t be ignored.
You have realize that even without the age-gap awareness, girls were becoming desperate. Any girl in shidduchim, or anyone who knows girls in shidduchim doesn’t have to be a genious to see that something is very wrong for girls. A few years ago, I heard of an increase in broken engagements, supposedly because people rushed into engagements out of desperation. This was before the “hamon am” was made aware of the age gap.