Widow Vs. Widower

I have been watching a few series on net and find that there is a lot of positive encouragement towards remarriage of widows and widowers in their middle age,  after their children become independent and leave home. The need for companionship is seemingly accepted and where a few family members/ kids don't appreciate it, efforts to convince them is taken etc.. It just struck me that today in 2019, when we women are still fighting for equality in all Spheres, whether this kind of a new relationship at 40+ is really feasible.
Let me first consider the scene when
in India, a man is widowed, after the rites of the deceased wife he becomes a new groom irrespective of whether he has kids or not.  If he has kids , the argument would be the kids need a mom , and if no kids then the argument would be that the lineage of family needs to continue . There have been cases where the widower has been steadfast in not getting married again and willing to bring up the kids alone. The statistics of these type of cases is not known to me..but in my personal experience it is very minimal. And the widowed father is praised to heaven. Because inspite of being a man he has  not given in to his personal needs ( I think his sexual) but has remained focused on the upbringing of the children. Sometimes this causes lots of emotional turmoil in the family relationships and dynamics, but that is a different issue.
Where a man decides to get married again, then what kind of bride do they lookout for : preferably unmarried ok if she is slightly older, next is widow or divorcee without issues. This, inspite of the fact the widower may have issue. As much as possible the possible bride should be of same community/caste/ subsect/ etc...The widower would be willing to get married to a girl from poor family too. In fact this act is considered magnanimous because he is giving " life " to the girl of no means and saddling her with a readymade family to boot. The compromise that the widowed groom makes will be in the form of social status, economic status, age (younger even if there is a gap of a decade between them). A 49 year old gentleman had replied to a matrimonial advertisement of 24 year old divorced girl. He is a religious person"shastrigal", well placed financially, has 3 kids , 2 daughter and one son. Elder daughter aged 24 married . Younger son 23 and daughter 21 or so at home. The reason he applied was because his horoscope had " gaja kesari yogam" which was rare and he was " fit" to keep the girl happy. Till date I wonder at his audacity to consider himself eligible groom to a girl old enough to be his daughter.  Ok this happened in the 90s. I do not know if there is a change in today but when I see the matrimonial advertisement, I don't find much of an improvement.
As regards women what is the scene?. A widowed woman with kid/s is told to live life and focus on upbringing of children . She is blessed that at least she has " kids". A widow without kids has to start finding some kind of an occupation for economic independence. But very rarely are they ever considered for another marriage. They have to focus their life on kids or self sustenance and conduct themselves with utmost " integrity" in character. ( That means don't even think of sexual needs you have lost the opportunity). I have come across a few widows with and without kids who got  married again. In one case, the groom had to convert from his religion to show depth of his love and then he got married to the lady. I have always seen the lady smiling and happy . But during conversations  I did notice that because she has been benevolently given a life again, she has very little say in any matter of the home front or their child. All decisions are taken by the man of the house including the dress/ saree she should wear and hair style she should maintain. She never gets to visit any shop for any reason. Cooking, cleaning, child care and office are her duties and she did it without complaint. Sometimes I used to wonder if she was really happy, but then as an outsider I probably was not the right person to judge. I occasionally glimpsed a forlorn expression, then again it was probably my over active imagination.
An another lady closer to my age, also a widow with a kid. The girl's father fell at the groom's feet showing gratitude for his benevolent act. More so because the groom was younger and unmarried. From the day one the only expectation of the groom from the lady was he should get no complaints from his parents and siblings. He "requested" her if she could do that and she dutifully readily agreed. Till this day she considers her totally indebted to the man for giving her and her son a " life".
Both the case described here is of middle class women who are economically independent too.
I keep wondering if this is the scene for working woman how bad it should be for uneducated, unemployed and women in lower economic strata. This being the situation, let me get back to my original thought regards marriage during middle ages. I remember a colleague of mine decided to get married before her retirement and advertised for a suitable groom. The uproar it created among her colleagues was huge. Her married and independent children came to office to threaten her and dissuade her.
I remember having a lot of argument with coworkers on what they object to. Ultimately it is her life. Immediately most said oh she will be cheated out of her wealth ,we are having her well being in mind. I said that again was her choice, if you can think do you mean to say she will not be considering her financial security. One gentleman said that it was so unbecoming of a lady to venture in this manner that too at this age..a lot of women agreed. This incident again is only a decade old.
So when I see these kind of encouragement for committment in middle age , it makes me wonder..is it possible? Will people within the woman's family be really open minded and accepting, or whether this might work in the higher echleons of society. I don't know.. For any woman ,to acknowledge that she has needs both sexual and non sexual and for that reason can  lookout for a friendship or relationship is a great achievement by itself. To go ahead and live independently as she deems fit is true independence indeed. But will that ever  happen? I am just pondering, ..