Older women dating or marrying younger men don't seem to raise eyebrows in Hollywood anymore. Over a decade ago Cher was all over the tabloids for dating younger men, but with Demi Moore, Susan Sarandon and Madonna all involved with men at least ten years younger it seems we're adjusting to older woman being involved with younger men. By Hollywood standards these relationships have lasted much longer than most, which surely has helped these relationships to gain acceptance. This begs the question "Does acceptance of the older woman, younger man relationship carry over into life beyond the rich and famous?" The sad answer seems to be "no." This is not only true for relationships with a big enough gap to be considered a May-December Romance. Even when a woman is only two to five years younger than a man she is likely to refer to the man as "younger." When the age difference is two to five years but the man is older he is more likely to refer to them as "being the same age." How did this strange double-standard come to be? The answer lies in the fact that traditionally women married men a few years older than themselves. There are a wide variety of explanations ranging from sexism to economics as to how this came to be, but the simple answer seems to come down to maturity. Girls mature a few years earlier than boys, and many young men are still catching up into their early twenties. In previous generations, women got married in their early twenties, so they tended to marry men a few years older who were mature enough to marry. These days, the average age for women to marry is nearly twenty-seven. By this age, men have long since caught up in their maturity level (and the few that haven't most likely never will mature). With women getting married later we are equally likely to have the woman be younger or older than the man, unless they started dating when she was much younger when male maturity was still a factor. So if you're seeing a younger man, don't let it make you uncomfortable. Remember that it is an outdated notion that the man should be older than the woman and this trend is becoming less and less the norm with each generation. |
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