Nigeria Content Online

Rare is the study
that unites cougars and gold diggers. But according to recent numbers
from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany,
women who marry much younger men have something in common with women
who marry much older men. Both groups suffer an increased risk of death.

Why would age-gap relationships affect women’s longevity?

The reasons depend
on which group you fall into. For younger women with older husbands,
life expectancy can be both the cause and the effect.

“When a younger
woman marries an older man, he is more likely to die before she does,”
Dr. David Eigen, a psychologist based in Boca Raton, Florida, USA,
says. “And we know that when one spouse dies, the other is more likely
to die within a few years.” In other words, take up with an older man,
and be prepared to take on some of his risk of death too.

Younger women are
particularly at risk when it comes to kicking the bucket soon after an
older husband dies because younger women tend to be more financially
dependent on their husbands.

“After the death of
a spouse, there’s the greater possibility (that) women will suffer
financial hardship, which can weigh on a person,” Eigen, author of
“Women – The Goddesses of Wisdom” (Gender Studies Institute Press,
2010), says.

Call it the Anna
Nicole Smith Effect: A year after the death of her billionaire husband,
69 years her senior, the busty blonde was in bankruptcy and ensnared in
multiple legal battles.

But even if your older gentleman is still breathing, he may not be huffing along vigorously enough to keep you young.

“A younger woman
living with an older guy is more likely to be doing activities that,
well, don’t keep her young,” Eigen says, “like playing bingo.” And even
if your husband is keeping you active, it might not be the right kind
of active.

“Women who marry
older men often become caregivers, and caregiving is stressful and can
shorten a woman’s life span by about 25 percent,” Debbie Mandel, author
of “Addicted to Stress: A Woman’s 7 Step Program to Reclaim Joy and
Spontaneity in Life” (Jossey-Bass, 2008), says.

So trade in your aging husband for a younger, fresher face and increase your longevity in the process?

Unfortunately, it’s
not that simple. The study’s researchers say the age gap cuts both
ways, and that even women who marry the strapping young mountain biker
– the so-called cougars- may see their risk of death increase as well.

A 2003 study by
AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) found that 34 percent of
all women over 40 in the survey were dating younger men, and 35 percent
preferred it to dating older men. Mandel says that women in these
relationships – the kind that TV shows like Courteney Cox’s “Cougar
Town” have made icons of – are put under a particular strain when it
comes to aging and body image, even more so than women who are married
to men their own age.

“When your husband
is young and your body is changing, you are more stressed and insecure
than the average woman,” Mandel says. “Stress is an inflammatory
process, which causes cardiovascular problems and has been implicated
in many disease processes as well as exacerbating symptoms.” This can
also, she says, lead older women to exercise addiction and severe
dieting.

Dr. Richard A. Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Weil Cornell Medical College in New York City, agrees.

“Maybe there is
something more stressful, socially and physically, about the role of
being the older woman in a couple,” he says. “They have to keep up with
their younger and more energetic husbands.” Susan Winter, the author of
“Older Women, Younger Men” (New Horizon Press, 2000), who has lived
with (and been married to) men who have ranged from 16 to 22 years her
junior, says it’s not easy to live outside the social sanctions.

“I know. I’ve done it,” she says.

“In essence, women
are dying earlier because society invalidates their choice of partner.
So maybe it is the limited social construct that kills, not the mate’s
age.” Which means that the increasing normalisation of older women with
younger men could make a difference. Samantha Jones, Madonna and Demi
Moore just might save us yet.

“Without that
societally imposed stress, a later study may prove it’s actually
healthier for women to have a younger husband,” Winter says.

So forced to choose – for your life span’s sake, of course – is it healthier to go younger or older?

According to the
study, women marrying a partner seven to nine years younger increase
their relative mortality risk by 20 percent compared with couples who
are both the same age.

If your partner is seven to nine years older, your relative mortality increases by only 8 percent.

But personally, Winter doesn’t care.

“As for me,” she
says, “I would rather die of a heart attack in bed with my younger man
than die of boredom changing adult Pampers.” (Hannah Seligson’s book,
“A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It’s Time to Walk Down the
Aisle or Out the Door,” will be published by Da Capo Press in January)

New York Times Service