How am I, er judith, “obtuse”?

The allegation is that John Greenfield’s dismality at satire is matched only by the sheer intergalactic scale of his obtuseness.

Meanwhile, back on the thread’s rails…

If it is the latter, I must proteth!

No, stick to the…

ummmm…

*crickets*

Male/Female equality is probably greatest in the Western world - in other cultures, the gender divide is greater, so presumably if the conclusion of the study is correct, the level of unhappiness in relationships should be higher.

Have any studies been done on the relativee happiness/longetivity of relationships across cultures?

I don’t know that anyone is trying to argue for a 50/50 split - egalitarianism appears to be more about negotiation and communication rather than some mathematical division of labour in this context, I’d have thought.

Thanks for posting that, it was an interesting read.

The conclusions of the study are that homosexual couples in civil unions are ‘happier’ than heterosexual couples in civil unions. The big point that Feministing makes about the link between happiness and egalitarian relationships is limited to part of one of half a dozen or so possibilities that the study discussed but did no testing or analysis for.

A second possibility is that partnering with a person of the same sex is in some way protective or confers unique benefits. For example, same-sex partners are socialized similarly with respect to gender roles and may share more similar communication styles than do heterosexual partners.

The study makes no conclusions in this regard and its disingenuous to use it to support such claims. I’m not saying that such claims are false, just that they aren’t supported by this study.

Anyway -

Our second goal was to compare participants by type of couple and sex on relationship quality measures at Time 2. We included these new measures in the Time 2 study to capture some of the nuances of relationship quality and to compare our results with those of other studies of couples. Of interest, we found that same-sex couples reported more positive relationship quality and less conflict than heterosexual married couples on nearly all of the measures included in the study. This result is similar to results found in some prior studies of same-sex couples. For example, Kurdek’s (2004) longitudinal research comparing same-sex couples in cohabiting relationships and heterosexual married couples over time used a wide variety of relationship measures, including psychological adjustment, personality traits, relationship styles, conflict resolution, and social support. Kurdek concluded that same-sex couples fared better than heterosexual married couples on 76% of all variables. Gottman et al. (2003), in a study of physiological and behavioral observations of couples in a laboratory, found that same-sex couples showed less negative affect, belligerence, whining, and fear/tension and showed greater affection, humor, and joy/excitement than the heterosexual married couples.

What might account for the finding that same-sex couples are more satisfied with their relationships than heterosexual couples? It is possible that some heterosexual couples may get married and stay married because of social pressure or convention rather than personal choice. Green, Bettinger, and Zacks (1996) argued that married heterosexual couples receive more support from family and society to stay together and may also stay together for religious or traditional values, even if they are unhappy in their relationship. In contrast, without the support of social norms and approval, same-sex couples may be held together by their own will and the work that they put into making the relationship work. Heterosexual married couples in the present sample were much more likely to have children than were same-sex couples, and the presence of children in the household can keep married couples together even when they are unhappy (e.g., Kurdek, 2004).

A second possibility is that partnering with a person of the same sex is in some way protective or confers unique benefits. For example, same-sex partners are socialized similarly with respect to gender roles and may share more similar communication styles than do heterosexual partners. Another possible explanation is a selection bias in our study sample. Although we drew our sample from the entire population of couples in civil unions, it is likely any same-sex couple willing to be a pioneer at the forefront of the same-sex marriage movement, particularly when doing so involves an out-of-state ceremony, was happier and more stable than the average same-sex couple. Along these lines, even the same-sex couples without civil unions who participated were friends of the civil union couples and thus may also have been more satisfied and well-adjusted than most. Finally, it must be considered that these results may have been due to a response bias on the part of the same-sex couples in the study, who were well aware that their relationships were being compared with their heterosexual siblings’ relationships. Given the current political context, these couples may have been inclined to present their relationships in the best possible light to avoid perpetuating homophobic stereotypes about same-sex couples.

Other unexpected findings from the study were the sex differences in autonomy and intimacy. It should be noted that these were self-report measures that may have assessed discrepancies between a participant’s desired level of autonomy or intimacy and their perceived level. For example, men may have really wanted more autonomy because of their gender role socialization, and thus may have perceived the relationship as being more intimate than a woman would perceive it to be. Conversely, women may wish for more intimacy and thus may view themselves as having more autonomy in their relationship than a man would perceive.

There is also a common assumption that, because women are socialized to be relational, two women in a relationship are at risk for becoming merged or overinvolved with each other (e.g., Krestan & Bepko, 1980), whereas same-sex male couples are overly disengaged. In fact, the research in this area has not shown this to be the case. For example, Schreurs and Buunk (1996) surveyed lesbian couples in the Netherlands on various measures about closeness, including emotional dependency, intimacy, autonomy, equity, social support from others, and participation in the lesbian community. They found that intimacy in lesbian relationships is not related to lack of autonomy and that both emotional dependency and autonomy are associated with relationship satisfaction. Green et al. (1996) compared lesbian, gay male, and heterosexual married couples on measures of cohesion (emotional closeness), flexibility (adaptability), and relationship satisfaction. Lesbian couples scored highest on the measure of cohesion, but gay men scored higher on this measure than did heterosexual married couples. Lesbian couples scored highest on the measure of flexibility, and both lesbian and gay male couples had higher scores on this measure than did heterosexual couples. Cohesion and flexibility were both positively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Thus, further research is needed to understand the complexities of the concepts of autonomy and intimacy.

Another factor to consider is that the majority of the couples in our study who had civil unions had obtained this legislation after being in their current relationship for a considerable time. Thus, they were not the equivalent of newlyweds in a heterosexual relationship; rather, they took advantage of the newly available legislation in Vermont at the first opportunity to do so. Time 1 results (see Solomon et al., 2004) indicated that men and women in same-sex civil unions, as well as those not in civil unions, had been in their current relationship for a considerable time, although not as long as heterosexual married couples. Research on marriage and on same-sex cohabiting couples (Kurdek, 1989) has indicated that relationship satisfaction is higher in couples who have been together longer, and research on heterosexual couples has indicated that couples who cohabited longer before marriage were more likely to divorce (Waite & Gallagher, 2000). For both of these reasons—the fact that same-sex couples had been together for a shorter period of time than heterosexual couples and had also had cohabited longer before being legally able to formalize their relationship—their higher relationship quality is especially striking.

You are in error. All, any, none, some, such, can either be singular or plural.

None can mean ‘not one’ and therefore singular. Or it can mean ‘not any’ implying plurality.