Does your weight affect your relationship?

Marriages are happier when the wife is thinner than the husband, a new study has found. (iStock)To the list of pearls of wisdom for a happy heterosexual marriage, add this: marriage is more satisfying when the wife is thinner than her husband.

At least that's according to a new study, which found that both partners tend to be "more satisfied over time" provided the wife has the lower body mass index (BMI.)

Researchers followed 169 newlywed couples aged 35 and younger over four years. In marriages where the wife was thinner than the husband, husbands were more satisfied initially and wives more satisfied over time, they found.

The value of the BMI had little effect on happiness levels, it turns out; it's the ratio between husband and wife that counts.

The study, by University of Tennessee psychology graduate student Andrea Meltzer, was published in the July issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science journal.

What do you make of the study? Do you see evidence of the study's findings in your own relationship? If so, how? Please share your thoughts in the field below.


(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers' responses.)