Daily Telegraph: In what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.
“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.
The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.
“One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.
The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on.
Categories: Awareness, Cleaning, Empowerment, Equal Rights, Europe
Very interesting interpretation of survey results. I think overall purpose of marriage has to be understood as provided by Islam. Sharing of household chores is of secondary nature although important. There are four purpose of marriage according to my understanding of The Holy Quran. First is to avoid physical, moral and spiritual maladies, second is for procreation, third is availability of a loving and caring companion and fourth is widening the circle of relationships. If these purposes are discussed and understood before getting married, then the chance of divorce can be minimized or even eliminated.
I am not surprised at all. I think they should too check for the couples that earn. They are also likely to divorce more then the couples that attend to their destined duties. (Women that attend to their households and men that earn a living).
In fact men and women can only be more comprising if they depended on each other. Women depending on men financially and men relying on them for the house holds works. This makes a perfect balance. It makes them understand the real value of each other.
At the same time children are not neglected. Hence they will not fall prey to the many a vices lurking around.
No wonder Allah has assigned a duty to each gender. Exceeding these boundaries must affects the balance of a society. By this I do not mean that men should always not help at home. This help should be at their disposal and comfort. No a must. And vise a versa.
This is a preliminary study, and there will be follow-ups. Correlation does not equal causation.
It is possible that in household where the woman does 100% of the household work is a more traditional relationship, in which the woman doesn’t believe in divorce, or right to divorce, or there may be a stigma associated with divorce.
So what the study should study is happiness within the marriage, rather than divorce rates. All the divorce rates tell you is that one is higher than the other.
But it doesn’t tell you the reasons. And in science, you cannot assume reasons.