>>442211. Not to the same extent
2. When you're adult you're supposed to be thinking for yourself, having responsibility and the capability to make your own choices, those are things that children DON'T have.
Again, children are very vurneable, impressionable, easy to manipulate and can't protect themselves, and anyone saying "uhhhh age of consent didn't exist until like a 100 years ago" ignores that children also didn't have any rights until a couple decades ago and that nobody really cared that an adult man is marrying a barely pubescent girl, and she had 0 ground to say no to this or complain, children were supposed to just do what they were told to and be quiet, even if it meant being seperated from your parents and made a "wife" of some old guy
On age of consent I think something like 16 is safe even if lots of people are still childish at this age, 15 is shaky and anything under is degeneracy