Researchers from Rice University and the University of Nebraska—Lincoln analyzed data collected from more than 5,000 couples in order to find out how similar political beliefs were among spouses, and how much these elements played a role in the success or failure of a couple.
Simply put, opposites don’t attract. Couples with more similarities tend to fair much better than those that don’t.
Researchers found that spouses’ strongest similarities were in church attendance and political attitudes, outweighing personality and physical appearance, and that these were key indicators of a successful marriage.
As a reluctant atheist, I have always felt that I married into the perfect religion, since (as a Jewish friend once said) Jews are just agnostics with complex backstories.
This isn’t far from the truth when it comes to my wife.
The study, published in the Journal of Politics, lists traits they found similar in spouses, from super-alike to somewhat-alike.
I went through the list to determine how Elysha and I rated, and we did well. It appears that we are destined for marital bliss. Here are the results:
Here is a selection of specific issues and attitudes that couples had similar views on, again rated from super-alike to less super-alike:
