The Marital Bliss Bar, sent in by Chenoa A.:
The description of the candy bar at the source says:
Here’s a sweet way for “soon-to-be-married” or “brand-new” grooms to get used to the fact that they’ll have to re-learn how to calculate percentages once married….talk about new math!
So, just to be clear, the narrative is:
Guys… in marriage, women get more; getting used to it is the only way you’re going to be happy.
Turns out the data suggest otherwise. The following things are true, on average:
1. Married men are happier than unmarried men. But the opposite is true for women. Unmarried women are happier than married women.
2. Women are more likely to file for divorce than men and, after divorce, women are happier, while men are less happy.
And yet, time and again, we’re told that getting men hate the idea of getting married and are wives are such a drag (see here and here for examples).
(One of the reasons, by the way, that women are less happy in marriage is because they do a disproportionate amount of housework and childcare.)
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 19
Toph — March 13, 2010
Does someone have a study at hand that shows that umarried women are happier? Not because I doubt that claim, just out of interest.
Schala — March 13, 2010
Men being less happy after divorce suggests they might not be happy with not having access (or having limited access) to their children while spending just as much on them with child support.
Jadehawk — March 13, 2010
well, unless those percentages on the chocolate bar are for "doing half the work around the house" that is just plain silly.
Jadehawk — March 13, 2010
oh, and all the papers I was able to google claim that marriage makes both men and women happier, except for one that compared mental health and showed that married women are more prone to mental problems.
I'd like a link to studies that claim otherwise, too.
Schala — March 13, 2010
Married or unmarried, its well-known that men don't go consult doctors for any health reason as often as women. So wether women have more mental problems than men, in marriage or not, is yet to be seen.
We are seeing under-reporting from men.
queenstuss — March 14, 2010
I'm surprised there is so much of the block allocated as 'his'. I didn't think chocolate was man-food....
Carolyn Dougherty — March 14, 2010
Susan Faludi's Backlash discusses many studies and metastudies of the happiness of married and unmarried men and women, measured directly and indirectly. The book is now nearly 20 years old, though, and I have no idea how much updating there's been on these.
scc101 — March 14, 2010
Bella DePaulo does great work debunking myths surrounding relationship status and happiness. She wrote a book called "Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After" and has a blog at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single.
Peter — March 15, 2010
This would be a much stronger article if you cited where this data is coming from.
Gravity’s Rainbow » Blog Archive » What I’ve Noticed — March 20, 2010
[...] Contrary to popular conception, marriage is good for men and bad for women. [...]
zeldap — April 6, 2010
i absolutely thought this was about women liking chocolate more than men like chocolate. so i bought it and gave it to my husband as a joke about how i appreciate chocolate more then he does.
zeldap — April 6, 2010
update to above: i asked my husband what he thought and he said "i thought it meant if you give your wife most of the chocolate everyone is happier."