Age Difference in Relationships

Perhaps because of show business, age gap in people’s relationship was brought to the forefront. To some nations, an older man marrying a (much) younger woman is part of the culture. It has something to do with assurance in the women’s fertility.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to this pairing. In some places, the ration of men to women affects the choice (in cases of women numbering more than men, there are huge possibilities that some younger women would go for older men in marriage). Some cultures even have arranged marriage and that age is the least of the consideration—more on family status (in the community), economic status, family name and influence, etc.

Modern times

In popular cultures, there have been celebrities and personalities in a relationship with huge age gap and who have proven that age does not really matter. Age gap goes quite several ways: men marrying younger women (take for example the forty-three-year gap of Mick Jagger and Melanie Hamrick), women marrying younger men (nineteen-year gap of Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson), younger women marrying older women (the thirty-two-year gap of Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor), older men marrying younger men (thirteen-year gap of Matt Bomer and Simon Halls).

And as for regular average Joes and Janes, there’s news about a Somali man aged 112 years old who married a woman aged 17 years old (way, way younger).

How is it going

There may not be much news about the effects of too big an age gap between couples especially those that are not popular ones. But basing on the celebrities who have made it so far (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have twenty years under their belts and Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi have thirteen years), age doesn’t really affect a good relationship. It’s not saying that those examples mentioned do not have challenges in their own relationships, but having stayed together for more than ten years is already a feat especially them being in the limelight.

It is true what they say: you can’t choose whom to love. And when love hits you, no matter how hard you avoid it, if it’s meant for you, you’re going to get it despite the peculiar circumstances.