Grooms were not substantially older than the brides in Shakespeare's time in England as a matter of course. Marrying in the early to mid-twenties was, if memory serves, the norm for both men and women (excluding, of course, nobility, whose marriages, as you note, about statecraft and property--most people didn't have enough property to have to worry about such things).
My recollection is that if the average age of first marriage was, say, 25, for the brides, it would be 28 or so for the grooms. I perhaps should not have called that "substantial" but there does seem to be an "older groom" bias.
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