ABSTRACT
Ageing as a process does not necessarily bring about a decline of sexual desire, interest or capacity, and there are many other ways of being intimate with a partner. This chapter presents the results from interviews with thirty-seven older women, and explores the many and varied ways in which intimate relationships are sustained in older age. In recent years, much has been written about the considerable changes in the expectations of both men and women in intimate relationships, changes that are reflected in altered attitudes towards marriage, adultery and divorce. In contemporary society, the complementarity of gender roles in what might be called a traditional marriage has been transformed into a ‘pure relationship’ in which individuals are forced to negotiate rights and responsibilities. This emphasis on intimacy places new expectations and tensions on marriage, as one respondent put it when speaking of her first marriage: Women were talking about divorce changing their life.
