What Makes for a Happy Wife

Sociologists Stephen Nock and Brad Wilcox recently presented a new study, "What's Love Got to Do with It? Equality, Equity, Commitment, and Women's Marital Quality," which is based on the National survey of Families and Households findings. In an interview in Christianity Today they shared some of their findings, a couple of which I will share here.

1. The biggest predictor of women's happiness is their husband's emotional engagement. The extent to which he is affectionate, to which he is empathetic, to which he is basically tuned into his wife, this is the most important factor in predicting the wife's happiness. This basically drowns out every other factor in our models.

2. 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, who believe the kids should be reared in married households--have wives who are markedly happier. This factor is as strong as who works outside the home or who earns the lion's share of the income. It's also extremely important that the wife considers the division of housework to be fair to her. A sense of equity is extremely important, but equity is not equality. Women want things to be fair in their homes, but they don't equate fairness with equality.

Any thoughts or comments?