¿Qué significa cumplir los cuarenta? Cultura y crisis a la mitad de la vida

Abstract

In the western world, and particularly in the Mediterranean countries, ít is generally accepted that men believe they experience a personal crisis at age 40. This even has been the subject of «scientific» explanations in which various factors such as demography, the home cycle, practices in the workplace, and physiological and psychological circumstances have been considered. The author, however, argues that what líes behind these «crises» is the power of symbols. There is a correspondence between the way we think of numbers and the way we think of ages; and potent symbols, like age 40, can endure because their meanings are transformed in accordance with envolving socioeconomic circumstances.