From politicians like Dennis Kucinich and John McCain, to businessmen like Larry Ellison and Donald Trump, to entertainers like Woody Allen and Larry King, there's no shortage of rich, successful men marrying much younger women.
The assets of fame, power and big bucks, the belief goes, tend to make up for the debits of time -- gray hair, paunches and assorted wrinkles.
But, according to new Stanford University research, the ''success'' part may not have much to do with it, either. The older a man is when he marries after 40, the greater the likelihood that his bride will be significantly younger -- whether that man is wealthy and educated or not.
''If you look at guys who do marry, the poor guys marry down in age just as much as the rich guys do,'' said Paula England, a Stanford sociologist and co-author of the new study. ``That was kind of surprising to us.''
Men in their 40s tend to marry women who average seven years younger, and men in their 50s are marrying brides who average 11 years younger, according to England's research. And men in the 60s? They tend to marry women who are 13 years younger.
''In first marriages, men are typically a couple years older than women,'' England said. But, ``the older men are when they marry, and it doesn't matter whether it's a first or a second marriage, the more years they marry down.''
England and research partner Elizabeth McClintock of Stanford partially explain their findings as due to major alterations of the family structure following the tumult of the '60s. But they especially point to ''a double standard of aging.'' They say the male ideal of beauty is found in women in their early 20s, and that ideal remains fixed for men no matter that they themselves are growing older.
''Women may be a little more indifferent to age than men are,'' England said, ``because they are not judging people as much on looks.''
What demographers call the ''Second Demographic Transition'' -- the explosion in divorce and the rearranging of family units after the 1960s -- has increased the potential for wider marital age gaps.
With both older and younger men chasing younger women, the law of supply and demand make the marriage market a tough place for middle-aged people of both genders, England said.
