I was disappointed to see the thread 男人四十一枝花，女人四十爛茶渣 closed by the mod before I was able to make a comment on it.

A different version of the saying I heard was

男人四十一枝花，女人四十豆腐渣

This is a quite old Chinese saying that sort of describes the discrepancies of how men and women are perceived at the mid age. My ex-wife used to modify it to
男人三十一枝花，女人三十豆腐渣
just to tell what an envious position men have over women when they age. (To clarify, she had a lot of advantage over me in the divorce court)

The saying is neutral at best or may be a little cynical and humorous. But it does have some elements of truth if you look at the reproductive capability and hormonal levels between men and women. If you know anything about human physiology, you know the tremendous differences between men and women when they reach 40s. Ever heard of menopause? So suppose you are in a potential marriage market, you know men are definitely perceived to have an advantage over women if they are both at 40s. So in that sense, women are finished at that age. Of course, they can still be politicians, doctors, scientists or whatever. But that was not the intent of the proverb.

Hope you will refrain your flaming using modern Western morals. Just show a little humor and have fun.

The thread was closed because it was an old thread in the dark days of this forum.
There were reasons behind reasons when that thread was started and it brought about disharmony in this forum.
Thankfully, it no longer has any relevance to the present forum and it should have been left on the shelves
collecting dust !

The old Chinese saying was in fact more about late maturity of Chinese men than anything. Regardless of cultures, men should have a longer shelf life than women in terms of marriage and reproduction. So what is the Western equivalent for describing this fact of life?

There are a ton of variations on a this theme in Europe,

It often goes like this , god has a sense of humour in that men are at their prime in their teens while women are in their sexual prime in their late 30s, unfortunately for the women the men are usually trying to get their daughters in the sack rather than them.

late 20s / early 30s for women, no? for sexual prime i mean. just an opinion based on personal experience, i'm no expert and may also have judged wrong.
right about the men, though. my record's 5 in one night when i was 22. probably could have done 10 when i was 18, except couldn't find a girl who'd go the distance

Of course most men like younger girls, but there are many women in their mid to late 30s who are completely wild in the sack.

From my experience living in asia and europe, many east asian women look younger in their 30s than many europeans in their 20s.

Just be careful of SAS (sudden aging syndrome) when they can turn into their mothers almost over night.

My mother suddenly aged, and even suddenly picked up my gran's hakka accent!

Western father never aged as he always looked old :-)