KEY POINTS:
No one likes the thought of anyone marrying outside their approximate age-range.
The very words used to describe the partners who don't fit in are derogatory.
Toy boys, sugar daddies, young bimbos, arm candy....
But perhaps that will change now it's an official trend that women are increasingly getting together with men younger than themselves.
It's surely not the fit young flesh that does it.
But part of the reason must lie in the facet that the role of the sexes are changing so much.
Young men appear to stay at home longer with their parents.
What more natural transition to make than to step neatly over the awkward and rather grisly time of sharing a grotty flat with some other bloke and getting wasted every night to moving impeccably into another home with another woman (but much younger than your mother) who has, often, got her own flat all sorted out, her own career and her own lifestyle.
Women are much more organised than men these days, and many don't have a hang-up about being a breadwinner.
In fact, many women prefer the control they have with a younger man who may be on a lower wage to having to face up to equality with an older bloke who may well want to flaunt his authority in a more old-fashioned way around the house.
Women also don't need to marry for money or protection.
Most women these days are far more capable of taking care of themselves than men.
When it comes to older women, younger men are far more interesting.
Men seem to become more and more inflexible as they get older, and less open to new ideas.
Women, on the other hand, take more trouble over their appearance and go to gyms; in general, they tend to be able to cope better on their own.
Why should they considering marrying, for a second time, a man who might well need nursing in the future (men generally die earlier than women), who may well hold inflexible views, and who are generally more rigid than young men?
Men have been getting together with younger woman for decades now.
They have had the economic power to choose pert-bottomed, peachy-skinned young girls to look after - and, who they can be sure - will one day look after them.
Now the boot is on the other foot, and women are in the delicious position of being able to choose livelier, younger and generally less jaded members of the opposite sex.
- INDEPENDENT
