The Cosbys are Happier than the Jetsons, and Have Better Sex Too

According to Role Reboot, which got the story from the Frisky, husbands are happier when their wives also bring home the bacon. Why not, right? Twice as much bacon! Or, since women are paid less, ~1.85x as much bacon, but still. All that bacon makes bedtime sizzle.

MONEY asked couples to subjectively rate their happiness in relationships, as well as report on the “hotness” of their sex life. Of couples where the wife earned as much or more than her husband, 83 percent reported they were happy or very happy (compared to 77 percent of couples where the wife earned no money or earned less). Couples with higher-earning wives also reported the best sex lives, with 51 percent attesting that what goes down between the bedsheets is “very good.” But it wasn’t just the couples together who reported happiness. Men, specifically, said they were happy with their sex lives with high-earning women: fifty-six percent of those married to women who earned as much or more called their sex lives “very good” (compared to 43 percent when the wives earned less). These men also expressed more overall happiness.

Are the wives similarly thrilled? Not entirely:

MONEY also found that it is actually female breadwinners who feel stressed. Wives who earned more weren’t quite so-in-love as everyone else and in fact, worried a lot more about their finances. A quarter of women who were higher-earning specifically stated there was tension in their relationship due to their husband’s “lack of career mbition.” MONEY noted that working women are still pressured to helm the (unpaid!) domestic labor at home and even though men who earned less than their wives did more housework than men who earned more than their wives, housework was still a source of tension.

Housework is a perennial source of tension because housework is boring and no one wants to do boring things. What is the solution? Get a Sherry Bobbins to help us turn chores into a game, or at least to remind us that it’s all-American to “do a half-assed job?” (“It’s the American way!”) Wait for millennial Silicon Valley types to come up with supposedly innovative solutions to daily problems like laundry, which basically boil down to paying someone else to do it? Who knows. Meanwhile, enjoy your happiness, fun sex lives, and pans full of bacon, egalitarian couples! At least until Science comes along once again to tell us traditional couples are happier and have more sex.

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