Everyone’s heard the “half of all marriages end in divorce” stat, but what everyone wants to know is this: how to ensure you don’t end up adding to that particular percentage.
The US Pew Research Centre has released a report outlining just that, based on the responses of over 35,000 men and women from March to May 2015.
Although the headline of the report is somewhat underwhelming – ‘Sharing chores a key to good marriage, says majority of married adults’ – there are, unsurprisingly (and reassuringly), other factors at play.
“Shared interests” was top of the list, with 64 per cent of respondents ranking it the most important factor for a happy marriage. “Satisfying sexual relationship” was next in the list, at 61 per cent.
Sharing household chores ranked third, at 56 per cent, followed by shared religious beliefs (47 per cent), having children (43 per cent) and adequate income (42 per cent).
Agreement on politics was considered the least important factor at 16 per cent.