Gloria Steinem never thought it would happen to her, either.
The iconic feminist married at 66 - a decision that shocked not only observers.
"We shocked ourselves," the 74-year-old admitted once in an interview about her marriage to human rights activist David Bale. "Neither one of us thought that we wanted to get married."
Marriage at a young age is widely seen as a rite of passage, a step into settled-down adult life. Which may partly explain the cultural pressure for people to marry in their 20s and 30s - and why many want to. But at a later stage in life, after decades as a single person or after a divorce, the assumption that marriage is in your future often diminishes.
Some don't want to compromise their full, independent lives. Others think that they will never find the right person. Many who are divorced are reluctant to repeat the marital experience. For women of a certain age, the dating pool of eligible men shrinks: Even if they want to get married, they begin to accept the fact that they may not.
In Last Chance Harvey, the latest midlife romance movie - an ever-growing genre (Nights in Rodanthe, Something's Gotta Give) that an audience accustomed to nubile onscreen lovers may term ickflicks - Emma Thompson's character, Kate, tells Harvey (a rumpled Dustin Hoffman) what many older single women feel.
"I think I'm just more comfortable with being disappointed," the fortysomething never-married woman says.
But as the movies would have you believe (and as life sometimes demonstrates), romance can happen when you least expect it.
Last September, business author and veteran columnist Diane Francis attended a dinner at the Fraser Institute in Toronto. She was simply minding her rubber chicken when fate intervened. There were 700 guests at the function, but the only available seat happened to be next to hers, which is where construction baron John Beck sat down. By the end of the evening, they were smitten. Now they are married. "When it's right you just know it," she wrote in an e-mail about the speed of their courtship. "We were happily single but are now happily married," she added.
Many women fear they will never find love again because of their diminishing sexual allure - the midlife invisibility factor. "I had always been cute and I am fit, but suddenly, the men were not seeing me any more. They were looking over my head to see the younger, perky-breasted women," says Joan Price, a 65-year-old author and aerobics instructor in Sebastopol, Calif., near San Francisco. "I was crushed by that. I felt I had so much to give, and that my life experience didn't diminish me in the slightest. Rather, it added to what I could offer ... I was missing the chance to love and be loved. I just hated the thought of it being over."
Still, she refused to give in to Botox-mania. "I saw my wrinkles as a good screening test," she says. "I wanted someone who could look past the wrinkles. And I wasn't willing to lie about my age, either. I have spent decades finding out who my authentic self was, and I wasn't going to hide that to be in a relationship."
When she was 57, she met a 64-year-old divorced man, Robert Rice. "This dashing, silver-haired man walked into my line-dancing class, fastened his ocean-blue eyes on me, and I tried to remember to breathe," she recalls. They were friends for nine months before their romantic relationship began. They married in 2006.
For many, it's a matter of waiting for a partner who matches the self you have come to know very well by midlife. Fully formed, well past the malleable stage, you can't fool yourself about what you aren't any more. Finding someone whose odd-shaped pieces of personality fit (or at least complement) the nooks and crannies of your own can feel as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. But for others, that certainty of self in midlife is what finally makes the prospect of melding two lives in marriage less threatening.
"It was something about me," Ms. Steinem replied when asked what it was about her husband that made her decide to do what she once considered diminishing to women. "I was 66. I was who I was. I no longer felt that I would have to give myself up in a way."
There is a stage of life that marriage seems to usher in when we are younger, but that is also true of the decision to wed at a later age. "We certainly didn't get married to have children," quips Marlene Hore, a legend in the Canadian advertising world for the past 30 years. After her first husband died, she spent 20 years on her own. Then she met, or rather met again, Bill McLaughlin. They had known each other as friends when they were both married. His marriage had ended in divorce. Three years ago, on Valentine's Day, they wed.
"We are trying to achieve other milestones" as a married couple, she says. "It wasn't for security. It was for the relationship."
They each have grandchildren. "It just seemed that we were a family." Walking into the sunset, married, just felt right.
For some people, the prospect of advancing age can be a marriage motivation, too. Like Last Chance Harvey, they don't want to let someone they connect with slip by, partly because, perhaps, they know how rare that connection is to find. "You only have maybe 20 good years left at this age, if you are lucky," I have heard many fiftysomething people say. And while possible physical frailty is a deterrent for some - "Why would I want to take on an old goat?" one older woman said about men her own age - it is also more reason to love, fully, in the moment.
Ms. Price lost her husband to cancer last August. And Ms. Steinem, too, lost Mr. Bale to cancer after three years of marriage. "Even if I knew what was going to happen, I would have chosen to go through with it," Ms. Steinem says.
Ms. Price echoes the sentiment. "I was deeply saddened over the loss
The iconic feminist married at 66 - a decision that shocked not only observers.
"We shocked ourselves," the 74-year-old admitted once in an interview about her marriage to human rights activist David Bale. "Neither one of us thought that we wanted to get married."
Marriage at a young age is widely seen as a rite of passage, a step into settled-down adult life. Which may partly explain the cultural pressure for people to marry in their 20s and 30s - and why many want to. But at a later stage in life, after decades as a single person or after a divorce, the assumption that marriage is in your future often diminishes.
Some don't want to compromise their full, independent lives. Others think that they will never find the right person. Many who are divorced are reluctant to repeat the marital experience. For women of a certain age, the dating pool of eligible men shrinks: Even if they want to get married, they begin to accept the fact that they may not.
In Last Chance Harvey, the latest midlife romance movie - an ever-growing genre (Nights in Rodanthe, Something's Gotta Give) that an audience accustomed to nubile onscreen lovers may term ickflicks - Emma Thompson's character, Kate, tells Harvey (a rumpled Dustin Hoffman) what many older single women feel.
"I think I'm just more comfortable with being disappointed," the fortysomething never-married woman says.
But as the movies would have you believe (and as life sometimes demonstrates), romance can happen when you least expect it.
Last September, business author and veteran columnist Diane Francis attended a dinner at the Fraser Institute in Toronto. She was simply minding her rubber chicken when fate intervened. There were 700 guests at the function, but the only available seat happened to be next to hers, which is where construction baron John Beck sat down. By the end of the evening, they were smitten. Now they are married. "When it's right you just know it," she wrote in an e-mail about the speed of their courtship. "We were happily single but are now happily married," she added.
Many women fear they will never find love again because of their diminishing sexual allure - the midlife invisibility factor. "I had always been cute and I am fit, but suddenly, the men were not seeing me any more. They were looking over my head to see the younger, perky-breasted women," says Joan Price, a 65-year-old author and aerobics instructor in Sebastopol, Calif., near San Francisco. "I was crushed by that. I felt I had so much to give, and that my life experience didn't diminish me in the slightest. Rather, it added to what I could offer ... I was missing the chance to love and be loved. I just hated the thought of it being over."
Still, she refused to give in to Botox-mania. "I saw my wrinkles as a good screening test," she says. "I wanted someone who could look past the wrinkles. And I wasn't willing to lie about my age, either. I have spent decades finding out who my authentic self was, and I wasn't going to hide that to be in a relationship."
When she was 57, she met a 64-year-old divorced man, Robert Rice. "This dashing, silver-haired man walked into my line-dancing class, fastened his ocean-blue eyes on me, and I tried to remember to breathe," she recalls. They were friends for nine months before their romantic relationship began. They married in 2006.
For many, it's a matter of waiting for a partner who matches the self you have come to know very well by midlife. Fully formed, well past the malleable stage, you can't fool yourself about what you aren't any more. Finding someone whose odd-shaped pieces of personality fit (or at least complement) the nooks and crannies of your own can feel as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. But for others, that certainty of self in midlife is what finally makes the prospect of melding two lives in marriage less threatening.
"It was something about me," Ms. Steinem replied when asked what it was about her husband that made her decide to do what she once considered diminishing to women. "I was 66. I was who I was. I no longer felt that I would have to give myself up in a way."
There is a stage of life that marriage seems to usher in when we are younger, but that is also true of the decision to wed at a later age. "We certainly didn't get married to have children," quips Marlene Hore, a legend in the Canadian advertising world for the past 30 years. After her first husband died, she spent 20 years on her own. Then she met, or rather met again, Bill McLaughlin. They had known each other as friends when they were both married. His marriage had ended in divorce. Three years ago, on Valentine's Day, they wed.
"We are trying to achieve other milestones" as a married couple, she says. "It wasn't for security. It was for the relationship."
They each have grandchildren. "It just seemed that we were a family." Walking into the sunset, married, just felt right.
For some people, the prospect of advancing age can be a marriage motivation, too. Like Last Chance Harvey, they don't want to let someone they connect with slip by, partly because, perhaps, they know how rare that connection is to find. "You only have maybe 20 good years left at this age, if you are lucky," I have heard many fiftysomething people say. And while possible physical frailty is a deterrent for some - "Why would I want to take on an old goat?" one older woman said about men her own age - it is also more reason to love, fully, in the moment.
Ms. Price lost her husband to cancer last August. And Ms. Steinem, too, lost Mr. Bale to cancer after three years of marriage. "Even if I knew what was going to happen, I would have chosen to go through with it," Ms. Steinem says.
Ms. Price echoes the sentiment. "I was deeply saddened over the loss
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