Friday, December 30, 2011

The curious case of the much older multiply-divorced man and the younger woman

Kelsey Grammer. Donald Trump. Boris Becker. My boss. An older man you know.

Women marry up. With regard to age, height and in all likelihood social status. I know this.You know this.
But I did not know what it was called until quite recently.
Hypergamy.

Sounds like a disease.
Sometimes it is.

There are several facets to hypergamy. In its simplest form it denotes a woman simply wanting what Nature prescribes. A man capable of physically and economically protecting her. And her children.
And she in turn stays with him and adds colour to his 'black and white' world.

When it works well, it is beautiful.

When it doesn't, we get all kinds of permutations.

There is a coupling I have never been able to 'get'. This is the older man who has had a string of failed marriages/relationships and usually many children behind him, who pairs up with a younger often childless woman in her thirties.

In all the above cases, the man is usually rich and powerful (an alpha). He is known to have had liaisons with many women, all usually increasingly younger versions of the last one.

I am not referring to the average man who is once or twice divorced and simply marries a third woman. I really mean multiply-divorced men or those known to have had multiple relationships.

What is notable about these men is the desire to keep on having children with the new woman. And despite often expensive, bitter divorces behind them, these men are very much open to yet another marriage.

The women they marry also have traits in common.

She is usually not very young. Just young enough to be still fertile. More often than not, she is not sexually-naïve. She is no Maria von Trapp. But importantly, she is definitely not a promiscuous woman either. She has enough life experiences that she is never immature.
She is usually very atrractive and feminine. And usually also accomplished in her chosen field but is never what you might refer to as a 'career queen'.
She may have had quite a few previous relationships of her own, but she has never previously married and is usually childless.
She does want children. And the man knows this. And usually, he does not object. In fact, he welcomes this feature in her.
Sometimes, she will only entertain his interest in her on condition that parenthood is on the cards. He acquiesces without a fuss.

This coupling fascinates me. I honestly do not know why. Any comments and thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

4 comments:

Jimmy said...

Maybe everything is a bell curve. Most relationships have hypergamy elements to it in the woman marrying up. Maybe these men and women are just the different type of couples that are on the extremes.

Maybe all people aren't rational or these men are really that blind to "love" and go through risking the pains to experience it even for a brief moment.

Maybe all these people you mentioned are celebrities and famous beyond what has been known in the past and different rules have simply been invented along the way.

Spacetraveller said...

Jimmy,

Your last statement may explain why I find this coupling so fascinating: it is simply because in fact they are so rare. And yet they appear more common because they are 'in our faces' on TV all the time due to their super-rich, famous status.

Anonymous said...

Some thing about this post made me make this comment. I have been reading this blog for a even though now, thanks for the very good times.

Spacetraveller said...

Thank you Anonymous for your generous comment.
If I may ask, what is it about this post that made you comment?
I am curious...