Common hobbies, a good sense of humour and a healthy sex life may be considered a given for harmonious surroundings.
But new research has suggested that it’s actually how TALL the man is that may hold the key to a fulfilling union.
At least for the best part of two decades.
Researchers who have studied happily-married couples found that that the greater the height difference in a couple, the happier the wife was.
But although it was a big plus early on, the effect faded as the years went on, they discovered.
“Although it has been known that women prefer tall men in mating for evolutionary reasons, no study (before this one) has investigated whether a taller husband makes his wife happier,” said researcher Kitae Sohn, from Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea.
He added that the relationship between height and happiness ‘gradually weakened over time and entirely dissipated by 18 years of marital duration’.
“Nevertheless, the long period of the dissipation indicates a powerful impact of male height on women’s psychology, probably prepared by evolution,” he said.
Dr Sohn, who analysed data from 7,850 women collected from a long-term population survey, said there could be many reasons why a taller man was linked to a happier wife.
“One is the intrinsic value of height; that is, women simply like tall men, while unable to say why ,” he wrote in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
“This is similar to people favouring fatty, salty, and sugary foods without knowing exactly why: such foods are essential to survival but were scarce as humans evolved – hence craving such foods increased reproductive fitness in the past.
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