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AGE GAP LOVE Older man, younger woman or vice versa Leigh Bramwell looks at love that knows no age
T
ype ‘cougar’ into Google and only the first two listings on the first page relate to the animal. A cougar, for those who only recognise the term in a completely different context, is in fact a mountain lion or puma. But you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s an older women out to snare a younger man, because there are thousands of listings exploring the ‘cougar’ phenomenon. I rather like the term. Cougars are admirable animals, but if you’re a younger bloke feeling a little nervous right now, I can assure you that fatal cougar attacks are extremely rare and far less frequent than fatal bee stings. If
you do find yourself cornered by either kind of cougar, the advice is, don’t run – a fleeing human stimulates the cougar’s instinct to chase. Don’t play dead, either, or she’ll be on you in a flash. Some of the world’s most unlikely women have been cougars. Cleopatra, Catherine the Great and Elizabeth I have all been documented as having ‘dated’ younger men. Mary Tyler Moore married Robert Levine in 1983 when she was 47 and he was 29, and they’re still married. Carol Burnett married Brian Miller in 2001 when she was 68 and he was 45, and their knot is also still tied. And then there are the 22 million-odd listings on Google to do with older men dating or marrying younger woman,
DEFYING THE ODDS
Billy Joel (66) and new wife Alexis Roderick (33) married in July. Pic Getty.
ranging from the infamous Hugh Hefner who married a woman 60 years his junior in 2013, to Rod Stewart (70) who married the much younger and much taller Penny Lancaster (43) in 2007. These days, couples comprising an older man and a significantly younger woman are not uncommon – a 2013 US population survey found 4.8 per cent of married couples has a 10 to 14 year gap, and 11.6 per cent a 6 to 9 year gap. However, only 1 per cent of women had a husband 10 to 14 years younger. In the same year that survey was taken, Immigration New Zealand denied a man’s visa application because his Kiwiborn wife is almost 40 years older than he was. The department felt the age gap was a
negative factor in the relationship surviving. This year’s been a good one for age gap marriages. Billy Joel (66), married Alexis Roderick (33), Johnny Depp married Amber Heard, 23 years younger than he is, and Stephen Fry married Elliott Spencer, 30 years his junior. Who knows whether or not they’ll stay the course, but they have some great examples to follow. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall met when she was 19 and he was 44, married a year later, and stayed married until he died. And Joan Collins (82) and Percy Gibson have a 32 year age gap. They married in 2001 and are still married. When reporters once asked Collins about whether the age difference worries her, she replied: “If he dies, he dies.”
Madonna defends her predilection for toyboys by saying older men lack a sense of adventure, but that didn’t deter Northland woman Miranda Beere from marrying a man 29 years older than she is. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight – when they first met Miranda thought: “you’re just a nice old bugger who had a hard time when your marriage ended after 22 years.” Everyone they knew worried about the age gap and some of Grahame’s friends warned him it would never last. Despite that, he never worried she’d run off with a younger man. “Why would she? She loves my cooking,” he jokes, and adds on a more serious note that Miranda was very mature when they married 17 years ago when she was 24. Miranda was advised to expect an energy difference between them in terms of physical energy and drive, but she had her own experience to call on. “I’d worked in nursing homes and retirement villages and been involved in geriatric care, and I saw people in their eighties who were full of life and exuberance,” she says. Both agree that any differences they have are rarely to do with the age gap. They’re quite different personalities and when they clash, it’s because they’re both stubborn. “Two bulls head to head,” they say.
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