Only Sixteen" benefits society by communicating valuable lessons not only to young teenagers, but to their parents as well. The narrator in this song is a teenager himself, though, as he points out (no doubt a little tongue-in-cheek), he is a much wiser 17 now. This line can be taken at face value, or perceived as slightly satirical depending on the audience.

If the listener is a teenager, then the message seems to be that even if a love goes sour, there are lessons to be learned from mistakes you make in life. Not only this, but it encourages them to continue on trying for love even if you are disappointed the first time as long as the lessons learned are heeded in the future. The lesson of this love is not that the girl in question was too young by being only sixteen -- how could she be when...
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