May-December Romances

A 90 year old man shows up for a physical. He tells the doctor he is about to marry a 20 year old girl. "Really?" said the doctor. "You're healthy enough, I suppose, but take my advice. If you want a happy marriage, you should take in a boarder. Do you know what I mean?" The old man says, "Okay, Doc. I'll think about it." Six months later, the doctor sees the old man on the street. He asks him how his new marriage is working out. "Great, Doc! In fact, my wife is pregnant." The doctor nods knowingly and says, "So you took my advice and took in a boarder?" The old man winked and said, "Yep. And she's pregnant too!"

Just how or when did this phrase, “May-December Romance” come to mean an older man in a relationship with a [much] younger woman or vice versa?

An age difference of a few years, maybe even ten years, wouldn’t seem to be such a big deal. But 62 years?

This is not a phenomenon specific to Saudi Arabia. It happens in the United States as well: Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Deng got married when he was 68 and she was 32, and perhaps more famously known are Vickie Lynn Hogan and J. Howard Marshall who married in 1994 when she was 26 and he was 89!