Gadol, I presume that Mishna gives ages that would work for an average person, taking into account experience of that time. In a related example, bava basra lists multiple ways to educate kids- by parents, kohanim in yerushalaim, at regional centers, and for each explains why it didn’t work: not all parents were good teachers, too far to drive, teenagers wouldn’t listen, until coming up with the system that worked: local Rebbes in every town. It is mefurash here they didn’t have some magical wisdom what to do, they tried different systems, it took many years until Yehoshua Ben Gamla came up with the right solution . Dame thing with marriage: they saw marriages at 14 fail, and men at 20 doing wrong things so 18 it was
Bavel was already different, where young man could marry and go learn after that away from family, different from EY
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