Original article. The article is really just a blurb. The study included 900 men and women between their 10th and 40th birthdays. Including 10-year-olds in a study on marriage prospects seems like a bad idea -- what information can be gained there? I don't get the impression that divorce is taken into account, i.e. I expect they only examined whether or not people got married, not whether or not those marriages were successful. There was also an indication that many of the more intelligent women were not interested in marriage, because the men available to them were not interesting -- So, their not marrying is by choice, not necessity.
Many men feel threatened by women who are more intelligent than they are. This is true in varying degrees:
Some men actively seek stupid women, so that they (the men) can have a feeling of superiority. These are generally (and this is based only on my personal observations) not very intelligent me, or men who are immature or have very low self esteem. Always being in the teacher role in a relationship can be draining. One of the last dates I went on was with a girl who must have said "Wow, you're so smart" at least a dozen times (and, no, she was not being sarcastic .
). She was not a stupid girl, but she took on a subserviant role. She was very sweet, but if one's ego gets stroked too much, it can get sore.
Some men want a woman who is roughly as intelligent as they are -- a woman who is not always on the "student" side of the conversation, but who can teach the man as much as learn from him. I, personally, find these relationships to be the most rewarding.
Some men are not at all intimidated by intelligent women, and actually prefer to take on the subservient role themselves. This category of men is pretty small. I have to admit, if a woman is vastly more intelligent than I am, I feel intimidated, and, yes, emasculated. While I often find these women fascinating and exhilerating at first, feelings of insecurity tend to arise. Being in a relationship in which one can learn from one's partner is great, but being in a relationship in which one can do nothing but learn can be as draining as being in a relationship in which one can do nothing but teach.
What do women want? Who the hell knows? Seriously, though, a lot of women prefer the more subserviant role. Generally, they grew up as daddy's little girl, and got comfortable with it. Comfort is a pretty hard thing to fight against, much harder than adversity. In addition to their familial reinforcement of the subservient role, society, the Media (yes, the capital M, Media) propogate the image of women as generally less intelligent and less capable than men.
I think a healthy relationship involves roughly as much teaching as learning. If one spends too long in either role, one tends to get trapped. Ok, I've ranted and rambled enough for now. I started this post a while ago, but I got distracted several times by work, so if it is slightly incoherent, please forgive me.
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