Happier marriages result from attractive women and uglier men

 

From:  http://www.24en.com

He's had many an unkind comment about his looks when set against the radiant beauty of girlfriend Sienna Miller.

But Rhys Ifans seems likely to have the last laugh because psychologists reckon that happier marriages result from attractive women who wed uglier men.

And women who marry handsome men had better watch out. Men who saw themselves as better looking than their wives were more likely to be disgruntled and have negative feelings about their marriage, experts found.

The University of Tennessee study might also explain a few other couples such as Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas and Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller.

The Tennessee team tested 82 newly-wed couples for facial attractiveness and the quality of their marriage.

Their results, in the Journal of Family Psychology, suggested most men who married attractive women were happy to bask in the glory of their partner's beauty.

But Professor Jim McNulty reported: "Men who were more attractive than their partner demonstrated a tendency to offer less emotional and practical support to their wives."

He said "evolutionary perspectives" offered an explanation.

Strathclyde University psychologist Alastair Ross said many men enjoyed the prestige of having a beautiful wife.

"Men are rated as more likeable and friendly when they have a wife who is very attractive," he added.

Love study shows men want character over chastity in women

A scientific study on love shows that men are increasingly interested in intelligent, educated women with dependable character and emotional stability, and chastity isn't an issue.
The findings by Researchers at the University of Iowa are part of a study quoted by media reports Monday.
Conducted every decade since 1939, the study asks participants to rank a list of 18 characteristics they would want in a partner on a scale ranging from "irrelevant" to "essential."
Included are such items as "sociability" and "good cook, housekeeper," as well as "mutual attraction and love," which came in first place for both men and women in 2008. (In 1939, it wasn't in the top three for either sex.)
Male and female participants in 2008 rounded out their top traits with "dependable character" and "emotional stability, maturity." Men ranked intelligence fourth, a big jump from 11th place in 1939; in addition, "good financial prospect" moved to 12th place in 2008, a shift from its low 17th-place ranking in 1939 and last-place ranking in 1967.
"This is a generation of men who has grown up with educated women as their mothers, teachers, doctors, and role models," said Christine Whelan, head of the study and author of "Marry Smart: The Intelligent Woman's Guide to True Love" (Simon & Schuster, 2008).
"And in tough economic times, sharing the financial burden with a spouse takes the burden off these guys to be the sole provider," she said.
The study's participants were college students from the University of Iowa, the University of Washington, the University of Virginia, and Penn State University.
"Like attracts like, so certainly the fact that we were polling college students would suggest that intelligence and education are going to be important characteristics," Whelan said.
Another notable shift involves the significance of chastity: In 1939, it was valued more than intelligence in women, but in 2008, it was ranked the least important characteristic. Furthermore, it also was ranked the least important for men. This, coupled with the shared top-three ranking for both men and women, suggests a commonality that seems positively modern-day.

From http://www.24en.com