Mature?

In this article I’ll tell you why the word mature is used incorrectly and its incorrect usage conventionalized so deeply that it hurts. And, of course, nobody questions it – except me. I guarantee you that you’ll agree when you finish reading!  So if you’re now curious and want to be more mature about the concept of mature, … 

Considering that the life expectancy of people in the west is rising and hearing of people living to their mid 90s and even past 100 is now normal, calling a woman mature at 40 years of her age is ridiculous. If we take the age of 95 as the average life expectancy today – and remember that women generally live longer than men, 40 is not even a half of a woman’s life.

So if webmasters of directories and sheeple independents market themselves as mature already at ages sometimes even younger than 40, I shudder to think what they’ll call them(selves) at 55 or older! The problem in the western society is wide misuse and interchange of terminology due to people not knowing what words mean. Someone starts using a term and sheeple follow without questioning it. Sad indeed, especially in today’s age of explosive creativity and thinking.

‘Mature’ also means intellectually well developed, having reached an advanced stage of mental and emotional development. Hence maturity in mind, thinking, life experience. Yes, a 40 year-old woman will have maturity as against a 20 year-young. But a 55 year-old woman will be more mature even in this sense than a 40 year-old. So where are we?  Back to the point I raised in the first paragraph?

The English language has the highest number of words of all languages. And I heard somewhere years ago that 4,000 words came into the English language every day!  If this is the case and new words are coming into English more and more from other cultures and languages, why don’t we brainstorm for a far more appropriate term for the current label ‘mature’?  The appropriate scale of labeling women’s age groups could be:

18 – 30 = young

30 – 60 – middleaged

60+ = mature.

Is there anything wrong with the term ‘middleaged’? Not at all. It occupies the second third of life if we divide life into roughly equal thirds of 30 – 60 – 90. Hence it accurately describes the window of life which it denotes. It’s not offensive. And it’s clear and concise. So why not adopt it?

What do you think? Tell me.