Friday 19 May 2017

Peak fertility increases satisfaction with ‘manly’ husbands....

Women feel more satisfied with masculine husbands when they are at their most fertile.
Psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer made this claim following her study of 70 newly married couples.
Each relationship represented the first marriage for both spouses involved. She asked the
participants to fill out a questionnaire every evening for 14 days. Wives were asked how happy
they were with their marriage as well as their “conception risk”. This risk was highest when they were ovulating. Meanwhile, the husbands were given questions about what extent they behaved in typically “masculine” ways. They were asked how powerful, assertive or dominant they had been during the course of each day.
The purpose of this research was to test a hypothesis Meltzer held about relationships. She
explained that previous research has shown that “women demonstrate ovulatory shifts in their
mate preferences in the context of short-term relationships”. Basically, this means that when a
woman is at her most fertile, she is most likely to find men who display manly qualities more
attractive. Meltzer wondered if this would carry over to long-term committed relationships –
specifically marriage – as well.
She found that women whose husbands displayed “behavioral masculinity” reported higher
levels of overall happiness with their marriage at peak fertility. Meanwhile, wives whose spouse
did not exhibit such traits did not see any significant change in their satisfaction.
Meltzer explained there was one caveat to her finding. As her study involved newlyweds it was
“unclear whether the results generalize to other populations of long-term couples such as dating
couples or couples who have been married for longer periods of time”. She suggested another
potential issue was that the men reported on their own levels of masculinity. As these claims
“may be subject to self-report bias, future research should consider using more objective
measures of men’s masculinity.
Now you know!
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