Qs people asked me and my replies to them - Part 32

All that human beings can do is - learn about the disease - what causes it, the process of its progression, and what factors control it and stop it by studying it in detail using scientific methods.

Sometimes it takes a lot of time to do science. You have to wait with patience.

Meanwhile if you want to cure it with magic mantras, you will be fooled by people - like one of my uncles got fooled. This is his story:

One of my paternal aunts was in a terminal state of liver cancer some years back. And a street corner Pundit told her husband, my uncle, that performing some rituals would save her. I knew the pundit wanted to earn some money taking advantage of the tragedy. Would my uncle listen to me if I had told him this when he was in such an agitated state of mind? No, he wouldn't! So I let my uncle learn his lesson from his own experience! He performed several rituals to save my aunt. He was so convinced that his wife would be saved after performing these rituals that he started telling everybody that my aunt wouldn't die!

But like I had expected like a Biologist who knows all about cancer would, the rituals didn't work and my aunt died within one week of performing those rituals. My uncle was inconsolable and became very sick after the tragedy. He hasn't recovered till now from it. Had he used the time to strengthen his mind in a permanent way rather than escaping into a temporary sojourn, maybe, his life wouldn't have become so miserable.

Well, I told you the truth. A disease is a disease. It is not filth just to wash away or fly to wish away.

Now it is up to you to decide what to do.

Q: My sister-in-law is four years older than my brother. At the time of marriage we didn't know this. Is it Okay for a wife  to be older than her husband? What does science say about it?

Krishna: It is said “age is just a number”. The age gap does not matter when there is mental maturity, love, understanding and compatibility. Different age gaps work differently for different couples. There cannot be a single rule.

French President Emmanuel Macron is 24 -25 years younger than his wife.

Sachin Tendulkar's wife  Anjali is 6 years elder to Sachin but age didn't turn out to be a hurdle in their relationship.

Shikhar Dhawan and Ayesha Mukherjee: Ayesha is 10 years older than Dhawan but that never seemed to be a problem. The Indian opener is only about 15 years older than his elder daughter and is indeed a cool dad.

Priyanka Chopra is 10 years older than her husband Nick Jonas. Nick says older women are more mature and understand their husbands well!

Mahatma Gandhi's wife Kasturba is older than her husband. 

So here’s a list of celebrity couples that pair an older woman with younger husbands(2)

• Brigitte Macron and Emmanuel Macron
• Julianne Moore and Bart Freundlich
• Lisa Bonet and Jason Momoa
• Tina Turner and Erwin Bach
• Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade
• Katie Couric and John Molner
• Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson
• Joan Collins and Percy Gibson
• Hugh Jackman and Debora Lee-Furness

There is strange research on this: The study  at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rosktock, Germany, shows that the greater the age gap between a woman and her husband, the shorter her life expectancy, regardless of whether he is older or younger.

A man who is between seven and nine years older than his wife has an 11% lower mortality rate than a man whose wife is the same age as him. 

The reasons for mortality differences due to the age gap of the spouses remain unclear. The most common explanations refer to selection effects, caregiving in later life, and some positive psychological and sociological effects of having a younger spouse. (1)Researchers think Women with much younger husbands may die younger on average because they experience more stress!

As long as the husband and wife are in the safe reproductive age range, it doesn't matter who is old and who is young if they want to have children.   

If they don't want to have children, it doesn't matter at all! Two of my uncles married older women. They had healthy children.  They didn't face any other difficulties. 

Age difference is culturally conditioned and it is all in your mind. 

When a man can be old in a relationship, why can't a woman too sometimes?

It is silly to think about the age of a woman when there are more important things to consider in a relationship.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000022/

2. https://www.hellaentertainment.com/blog/celebrities/may-august-rela...