another reason it matters is that some women are reluctant to divorce which can be tragic. I'm reminded of Ehrenreich's _Hearts of Men_ and her discussion of how men as a group increasingly ran/run from commitment and responsibility. There's that whole thing about men "trading in" for a "newer model."
Katha mentions Tolstoy; what about Woody Allen? (and I loved his film Sleeper!) And did anyone see that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine is dating a guy who's going to become a doctor and once he does, he dumps her? He admits he was planning to all along and the irony is Elaine only dated him b/c he was going to become doctor. So, one's tempted to feel these May/December couples (what's the etymology on that? never heard it before) deserve one another in a sense, but if one is capable of sociological imagination - as Yoshie put it - one can see the wider reasons behind it and the ramifications.
And just so the guys don't think I'm totally kissing up with my talk about how men lack a sense of commitment and responsibility, here's a movie review from The Evening Standard. (sorry, I couldn't resist)
Peter "feminist guy" K.
> 8/24/99
> The Lure of the older woman
>
> The Thomas Crown Affair
> (15) Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, Denis Leary, Faye Dunaway, Ben Gazzara.
> Dir: John McTiernan. US. 111 mins.
>
> by Christopher Hitchens
>
> I once met a man who had interviewed Marlene Dietrich in her seventies.
Full
> of daring and spite, she had captivated him throughout the meal he gave
her
> and the ride he gave her home. Feeling it was only polite, he had proposed
a
> final nightcap and been fixed with such a look. "So sweet of you,
dahlink,"
> she breathed. "But I 'ave ze curse." Golly.
>
> The ageing process of beautiful women is a double misfortune: it is
> melancholy in itself and it provides a reminder of one's own decline. What
a
> shock I got, watching Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, to see Julie Christie
> playing the wrinkled and matronly Gertrude to such effect that one almost
> wondered what Claudius saw in her. Any chap of my age, raised on Darling
and
> Dr Zhivago, will know what I mean, because Ms Christie just kept on
coming,
> through films like The Go-Between, until we had mutated from thwarted
> adolescents into frustrated grown-ups. (What a contrast to, say, Brigitte
> Bardot, who collapsed like a pricked balloon or a mummified body exposed
to
> the air.)
>
> This sad version of time-keeping helps explain the current mass
exhalation,
> by middle-aged male (and some female) movie critics, over the remake of
The
> Thomas Crown Affair. Not only does the movie itself take us back three
> decades, but Ms Rene Russo makes many balding and paunchy men feel like
> spring chickens. How wrong Benjamin Franklin was, in his recommendation of
> older women in Poor Richard's Almanac. He instructed his readers to
> concentrate on the mature babes because they (the mature babes) would be
so
> much more grateful. A man who succeeded in getting Rene Russo's attention
> would surely find that gratitude was a oneway street in the opposite
> direction.
>
> It's not as if Hollywood hasn't stumbled on this essential truth before.
> What was The Graduate if not a completely memorable initiation, by Anne
> Bancroft of Dustin Hoffman, into the eternal mystery of what the hell it's
> all about? Who really remembers young Benjamin's younger squeeze from that
> movie? It's just that we've all been so saturated with kiddie-porn
starlets
> and supermodel propaganda that when Ms Russo (45) comes along, or
Catherine
> Deneuve (55) knocks everyone for a loop in Place VendTMme, there's a
sudden
> shock of recognition. Oh yes - the real thing! Now I remember.
>
> At a cocktail party in Athens a few years ago, I was introduced to Melina
> Mercouri and felt, for the entire time I was babbling to her, as if I was
> alone in a cage with an extremely alert pantheress. Those eyes! That
amazing
> jaw! The roll of the hip, the husky voice - imagine the rough purrings of
> the hour after dawn. She was about 70 at the time (her husband later told
me
> he wasn't exactly sure of her age because she had mutilated her passport,
> which only slightly spoils my story) and she could have knocked Mrs
> Robinson, let alone some Cindy Crawford clone, into a cocked hat. Age
could
> not weary, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.
>
> The directors of Thomas Crown know their business. When the female
insurance
> agent shows up to help the cops find the missing Monet, we see a black
> high-heeled foot come to rest on a chair, and then an expanse of grey
> flannel skirt, and then a parting of the skirt to reveal a black stocking
> and then - follow me closely here - an expanse of white at the top of the
> stocking. And then - exciting expectations rather than dashing them - we
see
> that it's not some perfectly gymed young thing, but RR herself. Of course,
> the sight gag only works because of existing clichés, but it also helps to
> undermine them. Kim Basinger worked a similar trick in LA Confidential,
and
> Lauren Bacall and Simone Signoret went on defying gravity for donkey's
> years, so the message ought to be - take heart! It can be done; indeed it
is
> being done, and always has been done.
>
> Ask Helen Mirren, who (apart from disrobing for a cover in order to
> celebrate her fiftieth anniversary) had the brilliant idea of playing the
> mad philosopher Ayn Rand - a woman who in real life did take and keep a
> number of younger male disciples, running them ragged until an advanced
> stage of the game. She wasn't as old as she felt - by the time she had
> finished she was as old as they felt.
>
> The strange thing is that here we have an open secret, about sex, which is
> actually known to more men than it is to women. Conversations among the
male
> trade union will turn up as many yearning or enviable observations about
> merry widows and mature divorcees as it will boastful remarks about
> cradle-snatching or jailbait (well, almost as many). And yet huge numbers
of
> women refuse to believe this, and can't credit the fact that men often
like
> someone with a bit of mileage on her. Better company, for one thing. And
it
> can help to have been round the block a few times. Stop me before I say
that
> there's no substitute for experience.
>
> My favourite scene, in this regard, is the one where Dustin Hoffman grabs
> Anne Bancroft in a boyish and inept embrace, crushing her lips to his. He
> holds her for a long moment - we see her over his shoulder - and finally
> relinquishes her, at which point she patiently expels a whole lungful of
> cigarette smoke.
>
> My favorite sex scene: Julie Christie giving Donald Sutherland a workout
in
> Don't Look Now - years after I first saw her drive men nuts on the screen.
>
> My favourite line - one that must be deployed with care but which has
> matured in the cask down the years: "But sweetheart, I'm old enough to be
> your brother."