Sian

So...  Roommie #1 and I were talking, and walking.  (Someone talked me into picking my camera up, again, and was therefore obligated to get her butt out in the sunlight and stand infront of my lens.)  She is beginning to get semi-serious about her boyfriend, but....   He's older by fifteen years and three kids.  She's closer to the age of his eight-year-old than she is to him.  She is thinking rationally about the situation, has thought about issues like having kids of her own, and retirement, if married to someone that much older.  Good for her.  Concern of the day?  She doesn't want to look like a "Trophy Bride" or be mistaken for his daughter.  I told her that she shouldn't worry about it.

I know what you're thinking.  "But she is."  That thought actually did occur to me, too.  She's fifteen years younger, and gorgeous, and that's what people are going to see, when she walks down the street with this man. 

I was brought up with the idea of  the "Trophy Bride."  I watched the First Wives' Club, too.  I'm not going to say there's no such thing.  There probably is.  But mostly, I think the concept is just fueled by bitterness.  It is an ad hominem that attacks both the man, and his younger wife.

The younger woman 1.) Couldn't possibly be intelligent enough to be intellectually stimulating.  2.) is a carreer wife (she's out of touch with all those bra-burning, arm-pit hair flapping in the wind ideals our mothers so loved.) moving the whole feminist movement back centuries.  3.) She's using him for money, tantamount to being a whore.

The older man: 1.) Is shallow/stupid enough to marry purely for sex  2.) Is using her--eventually, he'll dump her, too, and move on to a newer model.  3.) Dumped his first wife, breaking every obligation

So, let's see.  To all the divorced women out there, let's address these issues.  Starting with all those cheap bastards you used to be in love with.  1.  Why on earth would you marry someone who was that shallow/ stupid.  2.  Why would you marry someone who's more or less a leech?  and 3.) Next time, choose a better divorce lawyer.

As far as the younger woman goes; 1.) when was the first time you had an intelligent conversation with your father, mother, or some older adult?  Do you think that your parents enjoy spending time with you, or are they just condescending?  Are they genuinely glad to see you, or do they spend time with you only for the same reasons you watch Teletubbies with your kid? Have they ever asked for your opinion on something, and really wanted it?  Okay... So, why would a romantic relationship with an older man be any different?  2.)  Maybe, maybe not.  Probably not.  Most women do work outside the home.  And, even if she were, true feminism would allow her that choice.  It's all those little hypocracies that make us the "POST-feminist" generation.  3.)  Number three is marriage as prostitution, again.  We've heard that ad nauseum.  A younger woman who marries an older man, whom she may truly admire and respect, can expect to take care of him in his old age, possibly loosing her own healthy retirement years in the process.  True, she can also expect sex, at least in the early years, but that no more makes her a prostitute than expecting to do health care makes her a nurse.  Age is not just a number.  It is a life-expectency.  To marry an older man is to choose not only to be alone for many years, but also to recognise that those years will be the ones when you, yourself are aged and infirm.  I'm not sure that any amount of money is worth that.

posted by: SianNorah at 00:52 | link | comments

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