ABSTRACT
The behavioral impact of menarcheal age reported in the present research, for Swedish females, has been more articulated, more coherent across domains, and more lasting than has been reported for other comparable samples of females. The greater permissiveness of sexual behavior in the Swedish society would be reflected in Swedish females having their sexual intercourse at an earlier time than do Americans. The argument can be made that for the American females who, in fact, do establish stable relations with boys, about the same differences that appear between early- and later-developed Swedish females would be obtained between American girls with and without stable heterosexual relations. Similar differentiating features in adolescence were found between the early- and the later-developed females. The early-developed girls were not as interested in school and they had more advanced opposite-sex relations than did their later-developed counterparts.
