Falling in love at 50

New research claims men are biologically programmed to fall in love at 50. Is science being used as an excuse to behave badly?

Should a man aged about 50 run off with new mate, don't roll your eyes and assume it's a mid-life crisis - or that is what a new study would have us believe.

According to researchers at Rome's Institute of Psychology, men are biologically programmed to fall in love - for real and for the first time - at age 50.

Yet such models prove too simplistic for those who think there is more shaping our destiny than mere biology.

Biology isn't destiny

The Italian researchers questioned 3,000 men - all in their early 50s - and came up with a decade-by-decade map of the male heart.

Brief encounters: Bill met Monica soon after his 49th birthday

According to the study, men first fall in love - or think they do - in their teens. Yet this is nothing more than "puppy love", a precursor to forming a more serious attachment in their 20s.

The third stage, when men want to spread their love around, lasts throughout their 30s and 40s.

But once these middle-age Lotharios hit the big 5-0, they are biologically disposed to rediscover L-O-V-E: sometimes falling for their long-suffering wives all over again; sometimes seeking a fresh start with a younger mate.

"This is not just a question of the odd illicit weekend of passion or a summer fling," Willy Pasini, one of the report's authors, has said.

"These happen, but at least a third of men experience not passing lust, but a genuine resurgence of their emotional life. In other words, they fall in love."

Numbers game

Dennis Marsden, a sociologist who has made a study of long-term relationships, says he has little time for such theories of socio-biology.

Aging rocker Rod Stewart has found many new loves

"All these stage models never work properly.

"I think it is suspicious that it's 50 they are talking about - this is an age with social, not biological, significance."

This fascination with nice round numbers crosses cultural - and gender - boundaries, Dr Marsden says.

Because people age at different rates, it is difficult to predict how someone will look and behave at a certain age.

"When men turn 50, they wonder where their life is going. They are more aware of their own mortality, and maybe their wife is starting to look a bit faded.

"It's the Michael Douglas phenomenon - when you chuck your partner of several decades and take up with someone much younger."

This fear of getting older is reinforced by many employers, Dr Marsden says. In the City, in teaching, in physically demanding professions, it is not uncommon to be labelled 'too old' at 50.

'Middle youth'

Sociologist Lynn Jamieson, who wrote the book, Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Culture, says people only fall in love if it is on their agenda to do so.

"Michael's casting agent wanted someone younger..."

"A growing number of young women and men think other things are more important than falling in love," she says.

"More put off that sense of looking, and therefore openness to falling in love for longer than would have been the case a few decades ago."

She doubted many people would put off falling in love until their sixth decade.

Dr Marsden says while baby boomers such as Mick Jagger - who resembles nothing if not a Dorian Gray-esque portrait of his younger self - seek to extend their youth by cavorting with young lovers, the next generation down seems to be trying to prolong their childhood.

"If you look at Britain today, you have young men who stay at home into their 30s.

"Young women want no part of these men and their emotional mess."

But perhaps the boys just can't help it - it may be in their genes.