After analysing data from 7,850 women, researchers have found that the greater the height difference between a couple, the happier the relationship. Obviously nobody thought to ask the extremely tall husbands on this one, but you presume they enjoy their tiny brides.
“Although it has been known that women prefer tall men in mating for evolutionary reasons, no study has investigated whether a taller husband makes his wife happier,” said researcher Kitae Sohn.
“A greater height difference in a couple was positively related to the wife’s happiness,” Kitae went on, explaining that there could be many reasons why a taller man makes a woman happier.
“One is the intrinsic value of height; that is, women simply like tall men, while unable to say why,’ he wrote in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
“This is similar to people favouring fatty, salty, and sugary foods without knowing exactly why: such foods are essential to survival but were scarce as humans evolved – hence craving such foods increased reproductive fitness in the past,” he adds.
He also claims that women who go for taller men are more fertile as a result, writing: “the female preference for male height increased women’s reproductive fitness.”
However there is some sad news for all these happy couples… The effect of this height-defined-happiness fades over time (18 years to be exact).
“Women evolved to prefer tall men because they were perceived to be stronger, and naturally they are happy when they have what they like”, Kitae says.
“But as for other desired objects, pleasure from having them dissipates. What was surprising is that the complete dissipation took 18 years.”
