14 DAY TRIAL // A new study conducted by Canadian researchers at the University of Western Ontario comes to bring only good news for women used to doing most of the chores around the house: sharing housework is key to marital bliss. Splitting the chores in two in such a way that none of the partner feels there’s too much pressure is what can actually make a relationship stand the test of time, Express informs.
Ancient roles of the man as the sole breadwinner and the woman as a housewife do not constitute a successful recipe, researchers have learned after looking at the cases of 50,000 adults between 1986 and 2005. Dissatisfaction appears with both partners and it will, in time, influence the relations between them, which is why the secret to a blissful marriage is to share all the chores around the house.
“Couples who share household chores get on better than those where one partner is the breadwinner and the other is homemaker, research has found. Ideally, neither partner should take on more than 60 per cent of the domestic chores, from cleaning to childcare, the study by sociologists claims. It means the traditional model of a husband going to work while his wife stays at home is less likely to result in a happy marriage,” Express writes based on the findings of the study.
Even though women today try to do it all at the same time, the study clearly shows that a situation in which the wife is the major breadwinner and the one in charge of housework sets a clear premise of a failure for the marriage. Stress and dissatisfaction will play an important part in the crumbling matrimony, as will also happen in case of a husband who puts food on the table while also being the one responsible for cooking it. The solution, researchers have concluded, is to meet halfway.
“The happiest were those where the unpaid work was shared equally between the partners. These couples are most likely to be both working and, as a consequence, either not have children at all or have older children who do not need constant childcare. They are also likely to be less religious. […] The study concludes: ‘For both men and women the highest average level of happiness and satisfaction with life on a whole occurs within the shared-roles model’,” Express concludes by saying.