A recently published study in the Journal of Family Psychology entitled “Beyond initial attraction: Physical attractiveness in newlywed marriage” got a lot of quick press. The press coverage showed me a) reading the actual study was not required, and b) don’t believe everything you read.
The article was summarized virtually everywhere with this advice: marriages are more likely to be successful when the wife is hot and the husband is not. So, the King of Queens, According to Jim and Family Guy were truly ahead of their time?
The study was a sample of recently married couples. Studying newlyweds for the keys to a successful marriage is like studying first-graders for the keys to a successful retirement. Way too early.
And the study had findings like more attractive wives behaved more constructively than more attractive husbands did. Wow, husbands behave badly. Yep, I’m sure it’s because of their physical appearance, and not the fact that they’re, um, men.
And don’t for a second think that if your husband is less attractive, he’s more likely to be faithful. Ugly people cheat. If you don’t believe me, watch an hour of Jerry Springer or Maury. And wouldn’t a man who thinks he’s scored a trophy wife feel even more self-confident, not less?
Who the hell can objectively determine who is attractive, or more attractive? Beauty or ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. What attracts each of us to another is personally unique (the mating game would be way too competitive otherwise), and I would hope based on more than just how pretty or handsome we find someone else.
If one spouse truly feels they married out of their league, or they settled, there will be problems. Period. I’m no expert but I’m fairly sure most successful marriages are ones in which the bride and groom stopped worrying about who was “good-looking” a long time ago, and never thought twice about who was better looking.
So don’t believe everything you read. Well, almost everything.
Girl, you are certainly sassy. I like the way you sassed out that empirical data. Data isn’t all that and a bag of chips. I guess in conclusion, I was happy with the level of sassiness in this page.
Thanks.