Me too. I don’t think I would have as much respect for my partner, if I was the smarter/more successful one.
I can see that this has bigger meaning behind it than just the money. I simply would never marry a surgeon. I know my parents would have loved it (a DOCTOR!) but I do want to see my other half some time.
Straight male, I’d prefer it’s me.
Sorry that I had missed this and not answered.
The second: you are what you are. Are you more comfortable partnered with someone substantially “more” than you or someone “less” than you on some combination of intellect, education, income, and status. Yes for the purpose of the poll “substantial” is completely subjective: it is the amount that you, and perhaps your partner, notice it as a distinct difference.
To all:
Have the results of the poll so far been what you would have expected or do they surprise you? Do you think the results would have been much different a generation back? Do you think a generation from now people will fall out differently?
Thanks.
It’s pretty hard to extrapolate much from these data, given how nuanced relationships tend to be. People may have a general preference for a lot of things (facial hair, level of education, sense of humor), but people are complicated and have different dealbreakers. If a potential partner were appealing in every other way, would you reject him or her on the basis of salary?
A number of the examples upthread are of the form, “I tried [A] and it didn’t work, so in the future I prefer **.” If A and B were the driving factors for relationship failure or success, that would be meaningful. Sometimes, A and B aren’t directly responsible for the failure of the relationship. Respect, kindness, and even salary aren’t directly correlated to intelligence.
Playing Devil’s Advocate to myself, I can see how having had a relationship fail in part due to financial pressures would not unreasonably bias one toward a partner with higher earnings. Conversely, having had a relationship fail because a career-driven partner didn’t have time for non-work activities might bias a person in the other direction.
I think there were lots of ways to read this question and some of the answers almost certainly reflect that. If it’s all based on current salaries, for example, that will skew the answers because some people aren’t making enough to partner with someone making “substantially less,” so they have to choose the substantially more choice. In the US, men are more likely to be making more than women, so that right there can skew things a huge amount.
But I took it to mean “If all things are equal otherwise (meaning household income) would you rather be the higher or the lower earner.”
This isn’t really true. Marriages in which the women are significantly more successful than the men tend to be quite happy, similar to ones where men are significantly more successful than their wives. Marriages in which both people make about the same are less happy than either of the other two.
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2014/10/buy-and-sell-that-happy-ass.html
That’s why I prefaced my statement with anecdotal but I don’t think that one study with a small sample size that doesn’t really seemed to have been performed by a qualified statistician, and may be biased by what people actually chose to respond, I don’t think it really proves anything. I would need a better cite than that.
Your criticisms are well taken, but I don’t think there’s that much else out there. Like the blogger says (he pulled this stuff from the General Social Survey) there are currently too few high earning women / low earning men couples (at least among the respondent) to get a good estimate.
Call me sexist if you want. I like the man being the head of the household and the woman being the heart.
That’s sexist.