Saturday 7 February, 2009Love or money: what do women want?

Have you heard this one? "It's as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is with a poor one." Maybe so, if you can find one. But what if you find one, and you don't fall, after all? Do you marry him anyway? (. . . or her. Whichever.)

A couple hundred years ago, most people wouldn't think twice about it. In fact, throughout history, marriage has been used to establish and strengthen alliances between men, families, tribes, clans, and kingdoms. It was a political tool. It controlled the acquisition and inheritance of property. It also provided children-more hands to work the family farm or promote the family business. And, oh yes, more to marry off for wealth or leverage.

It wasn't until the middle of the eighteenth century that married people (at least in North America and England) began to call each other by their first names, instead of "Sir" or "Madam." By the nineteenth century, Victorian romance ruled-an iron hand in a velvet glove with lace trim. All the rigid rules and stringent sense of propriety had still to be followed, including strict gender roles and many children. Duty and decorum were everything. Wives labored at home and raised the kids; husbands financed the enterprise.

Things, clearly, have changed. Millions of women work outside the home now, earn advanced academic degrees, bring home their own bacon. Chocolate cake, too. Now, women are looking for men with something besides money and muscle. And men, it turns out, are no longer very interested in making heirs and building dynasties.

One study, conducted by the School of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, questioned 1,851 heterosexual women, ages 18 to 35, from the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Europe, and the United States. It seems that, with education, career, and financial stability behind them, women feel free to look for men that turn them on. Not only that; the more ambitious a woman is, the more likely she is to prefer younger men.

Not mere eye candy, mind you. Although looks matter more than financial prospects, according to Fhionna Moore, who led the study at St. Andrews, "What always comes out on top with women, and sometimes with men, is kindness and things like dependable character. And that has been shown over most of the studies that have been done."

So what, exactly, do those young men want? The Gallup Organization conducted a survey of a statistically representative sample of 1,003 men and women, ages 20 to 29, for the National Marriage Project at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in the US.

Think you can guess what they found?

The overwhelming majority (94 percent) of never-married singles-both men and women-agree that "when you marry, you want your spouse to be your soul mate, first and foremost." Nearly as many (88 percent) also believe that "there is a special person, a soul mate, waiting for you somewhere out there."

As to whether they'd marry for money, although two-thirds (65 percent) of singles say that they believe marriage will improve their economic situation, even more say it's extremely important to be economically secure—as individuals—before they marry. Since the divorce rate is so high, young adults—especially women—no longer trust marriage as a reliable economic partnership. A large majority (82 percent) think it's risky for a woman to rely on marriage for financial security.

But that's okay. More than 80 percent of all women, both single and married, say it's more important to have a husband who can communicate about his deepest feelings than to have one who makes a good living.

The guys must find this acceptable, too, because more than three-quarters of all singles (78 percent) agree that a couple shouldn't marry at all unless they're prepared to stick it out for life. That's pretty significant, when you consider how difficult it can be to sustain a "soul-mate" marriage in an era of rampant divorce. Maybe that's why so many (86 percent) believe that a successful marriage is hard work and a full-time job.

Not for the traditional reasons, though, The husband providing a safe house and such basics as food and clothing (oh yeah, and living in the house); the wife maintaining the home, having sex with her husband, and raising the kids (oh yeah, and living in the house)—that's plenty of hard work, all right. But only 16 percent of young adults believe that the main reason to marry is to have kids. In fact, a majority of men (62 percent) agree that, if a woman hasn't found the right guy yet, it’s okay for her to go ahead and have a baby on her own.

Nope, the up-and-coming concept of marriage (and other serious, quasi-marital relationships) is tough because it specifies an awesome shopping list of must-haves: sexual fidelity, romantic love, emotional intimacy, companionship.

And nothing money can buy.