October 2, 2006

CT: What Married Women Want

In the latest issue of Christianity Today, Stan Guthrie interviewed the presenters of a recent study, sociologists Brad Wilcox and Steven L. Nock. What's Love Got to Do with It? Equality, Equity, Commitment, and Women's Marital Quality, reveals some interesting statistics about what married women say they want today:

1. "Women who have more traditional gender attitudes are significantly happier in their marriages. They are more likely to embrace the idea that men should take the primary lead in breadwinning adn women should take the primary lead in nurturing the children and managing the domestic sphere, managing family life."

2. Around 35% of women in the population still hold to these traditional views.

3. "Spouses who share weekly [church] attendance had happier wives. Spouses who share a strong, normative commitment to marriage-that is, who are opposed to easy divorce...hae wives who are markedly happier."

4. "Women want things to be fair in their homes, but they don't equate fairness with equality."


As a married, Christian woman whose husband lacks the desire to have the "head ouf household" title and lacks the passion or desire to be the "primary bread-winner," I don't find myself desiring that he change. Hmmm. I'm not saying anything particularly negative or positive about this study...but perhaps there is just something odd about me -- or not.

1 comment:

Emily said...

I'm biting my tongue on this one.

Though I will say, I'm glad we've found scientific ways to measure happiness. Now we can finally determine which lifestyles to condemn on the basis of how they make married American women feel.