According to a new and very interesting population statistics, a man who marries a woman 15 to 17 years younger, decreases his chances of dying early by 20 per cent. The study also found that a man may reduce his risk of premature death by 11 per cent if he marries a woman between seven to nine years younger than him. But, interestingly enough, if a man marries a woman who is older, he is more likely to die early.

The study, carried out by a leading study group the Max Planck Institute in Germany, focused on male deaths between 1990 and 2005 for the entire population of Denmark. The investigators explained that one possible explanation for the relationship between younger brides and longer life for older men could be natural selection. In their opinion, it is quite a natural and normal thing that younger women are more likely to choose better fit, healthier, more successful and better maintained older gentlemen as their marriage mates.

Another theory could be that a younger woman will take a better care of her husband and, therefore he will have more chance to live a longer life, said Sven Drefahl, a spokesman for the Rostock-based institute, offering one more possible explanation to the study findings.

However, when it comes to ladies, the results of the study demonstrated that women get much more benefit when they marry a man of the same age. Wives with husbands who are older or younger than them by between seven and nine years, increase their chances of dying early by 20 per cent. This number climbs up to 30 per cent if the age difference between the two genders is close to 15 and 17 years.

Among some celebrity couples that have more than ten years of age difference between them are Michael Douglas and wife Catherine Zeta Jones, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Brad Bitt and Angelina Jolie, Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, Sanjay Dutt and Manyata, Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao, and Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor.

On average in Europe, the majority of men marry women who are approximately three years their junior.

Tags: Age Gap Relationships, Aging, Marriage

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