The adage is true: Men tend to marry a woman who is like their mother.
We're not talking looks or personality. It's even bigger than that. We're talking life direction. Whether a young man's mother earned a college degree and whether she worked outside the home while he was growing up seems to have an effect years later when he considers his ideal wife, according to a study by University of Iowa sociologist Christine Whelan, author of "Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women."
High-achieving men, that is those who earn salaries in the top 10 percent for their age and/or have a graduate degree, are highly likely to marry a woman whose education level mirrors their mom's.
Nearly 80 percent of the high-achieving men whose mothers had college degrees married women with college degrees, and 19 percent of them married women with graduate degrees. Of men whose moms had graduate degrees, 62 percent tied the knot with graduate degree holders, and 27 percent said "I do" to women with college degrees.
Sixty-eight percent of high-achieving men agreed with the statement, "Smart women make better mothers."
"Successful men in their 20s and 30s today are the sons of a pioneering generation of high-achieving career women. Their mothers serve as role models for how a woman can be nurturing and successful at the same time," said Whelan, a visiting assistant professor of sociology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "One man I interviewed put it like this: 'If your mother is a success, you don't have any ideas of success and family that exclude a woman from working.'"
Fun facts about men and their mothers:
- 72 percent of mothers of high-achieving men worked outside the home after they had children.
- Among those men, 75 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "Men are more attracted to women who are successful in their careers."
- Men who grew up with working moms were almost twice as likely to marry a woman who makes $50,000 or more per year.
- 62 percent of high-achieving single men disagreed with this statement: "Women who are stay-at-home parents are better mothers than women who work outside the home."
- 75 percent of the high-achieving men disagreed with this statement: "It is usually better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family."
"These young men saw their mothers as smart women who could choose to work outside the home, and now that they're making decisions about what they want in a wife, it seems that they are choosing similar types of women," said graduate student Christie Boxer, who assisted with the research.--From the Editors at Netscape
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