A large age difference between spouses always gives bad marriages ?

Tweet

This is a true story, collected from documents and letters found in public archives : In France, in 1812, an university professor married the daughter of an old high school friend, a high provincial fonctionary. She was a beautiful well-mannered 17 years old girl, he was a bald man aged 43. They had no children, but a great social life : balls, celebrations, parties, literary lectures 2 or 3 times a week. The young woman received a lot of poems and love letters and had at least 3 relationships, with a high ranked officer, a journalist, and the best friend of her husband, a magistrate. In 1821, an uncle that she have never seen - he emigrated in America during the French Revolution, became very rich, and was two years younger than her husband - came to the home of the couple in Paris to accompany her in province for the marriage of a sister. They felt in love and fled two years the sermons and orders of their family, traveling in Switzerland and Italy. During this time, the professor wrote two books, had a liaison with an actress, and a child with a domestic. The uncle had to go back to America, lived her at her parents' home, and died in the boat when returning to France. She asked for a legal separation with her husband, saying that he was impotent. Do you think that a large age difference between spouses always gives bad marriages ? Was it the problem here ? Your thoughts about this couple are welcomed.