Does the marital status of an actor affect their star appeal?

"Do you think she will continue acting?" or "Do you think the role will suit her"? are questions you often hear when a female actor ties the knot. It has been a topic of debate everytime a female actor gets married because like it or not it is most often followed by her gradual disappearance from celluloid due to various reasons. Marriage being the prime and then motherhood. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan might be the only mainstream actress of recent time whose sex appeal and glamour has remained in tact, if not increased, after her marriage. But a question that then comes to the mind is if her role in "Dhoom 2" would have been accepted if she had done it after she became the Mrs. Another female star who hasn't had a downfall would be Malaika Arora Khan. She has always maintained that she would like to remain the "item" girl and audiences have always accepted her. But there are numerous others who haven't been so lucky.

Sridevi, Juhi Chawla, Madhuri Dixit, Raveena Tandon are versatile actors who have done some great work during their prime time. But today, a Sridevi or Juhi Chawla running around trees or dancing in the snow in chiffon sari would be far from accepted. The comment that would usually come up that time will be, "Can't she act her age"? Very interestingly, the same has NEVER been said to a married male actor. In fact the "family man" image just ups their glamour quotient. Most leading actors have found stardom after marriage and fatherhood. Shah rukh khan, Aamir Khan, Shiney Ahuja to name a few. Being married did not stop the audience from accepting Hrithik Roshan as a super hero in "Krrish" neither did it stop them from accepting Farhan Akhtar and Arjun Rampal as rock stars in "Rock on".

There was an era in films when there were female actors in the industry solely because of their acting calibre, irrespective of their marital status. Yesteryear female actor Devika Rani entered the industry after she married producer - actor, Himanshu Rai. Later, Shobana Samarth, Meena Kumari and Nutan followed suit. This trend
somehow lost the battle in the long rum to the superficial pursuit of glamour and sex appeal. Like the time when Rakhee, who had earlier played Amitabh Bachchan's love interest, after marriage played the
role of his mother! Some may argue that this is no more the case and married female actors are making a comeback and are being hugely accepted. True, they are, but only in offbeat, women centric movies. When was the last time you saw any of them in a role like the one Kareena played in "Kambhakt Ishq" or Anushka Sharma in "Band Baaja Baraat"? Much as we hate to admit, marriage still is the main criteria that decides the star value of film stars. A lot positive for the male actors but the other way round for their female counterparts.