Women Say a Good Marriage is Not About Money

The No. 1 factor in women's marital happiness is the "emotional engagement" of their husbands, University of Virginia researchers say.

Husbands' commitment to and support of the union is more important than money and the division of household chores, concludes the study drawn from the 5,000-couple National Survey of Families and Households.

"Conventional and academic wisdom now suggests that the 'best' marriages are unions of equals," researcher Steven Nock said. "Our work suggests that the reality is more complicated."

"Regardless of what married women say they believe about gender, they tend to have happier marriages when their husband is a good provider -- provided that he is also emotionally engaged," researcher W. Bradford Wilcox said. "I was very surprised to find that even egalitarian-minded women are happier when their marriages are organized along more gendered lines."

The study published in the journal Social Forces found the most happily married women do not work outside the home and have husbands who earn the majority of the family's income.

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