It perhaps difficult to define a happy marriage because there are not very many of them in the real sense of what we feel they should be. You are likely to see happy couples or read about them, but you will be amazed to hear what some journalists call the ‘inside stories’ of these marriages. It is a lot of hard work, pain and endurance – all hidden behind smiles.
Happy marriage
It is however easy to have a sense of what good marriage should be: love, deep friendship, caring for each other passionately, sharing, mutual respect, forgiveness, and peace.
Hard as it is to achieve, a happy marriage is important for the peace and happiness of the couple, and, as experts have observed, provides a buffer against the health-depleting effects of later life and help in the management of difficult decisions of life.
It is double wahala for a marriage in which both wife and husband are not happy. But it is said that the happiness of at least one spouse could be helpful. But then, which spouse’s happiness is most important for peace and marital satisfaction? An interesting on-going debate.
Scenario one
Marriage with kids. Husband is the only bread winner. He hits the road early in the morning and returns late evening, or if it is in Lagos, at night. Wife is in charge of the home front, and so husband expects everything to be in order at home. This includes making kids and husband comfortable. It does seem then that Husband’s happiness is key here, to enable him make the money.
Scenario two
Both spouses work. Yea, there is some role complication here. They both return in the evening tired. Whose’s happiness is more important? It would seem that from this point on, tired as she may be, Wife still has more work to do. Even with many house helps at home, she has to ensure that everything is in order, that the kids are happy, that Husband is served whatever he wishes for dinner, and also be made happy in bed later at night if he wants it.
Although she is gifted in multi-tasking, it would seem that Wife has so much to do, and the happiness of the home should depend a lot more on her well-being. If she gets mad, everybody at home, including the innocent kids suffer her displacement of aggression, and housekeeping also suffers.
I have argued this out with a couple of guys. Although they seemed to agree that the woman’s happiness is key to a peaceful, functional home, they feel making it obvious to Wife is akin to ceding too much power to her.
“You can’t trust a woman’s fury but giving her too much power at home is more dangerous,” one of them, Seyi, said.
Well, I don’t agree with him. Showing a Wife some respect, making her happy to ensure overall happiness in marriage, can’t be likened to concession of power, the type we have seen some politicians make lately in phone calls to victorious opponents.
Researchers
Now, let’s see what the experts say. Researchers have observed that the happier the wife is with the marriage, the more content her husband will be with life in general, a husband’s happiness is significantly related to how his wife feels about the union.
Deborah Carr, a sociology professor is one of the researchers whose work is often cited. From her study, when the wife is happy with a long-term partnership, the husband is happier, no matter how he feels about the marriage. So for marital quality, it seems the wife’s happiness matters more than the husband’s.
Carr, the study’s first author said: “I think it comes down to the fact that when a wife is satisfied with the marriage she tends to do a lot more for her husband, which has a positive effect on his life.
Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives.”
Along with the importance of the wife’s happiness, the researchers also found that wives got less happy when their husbands were sick, but the husbands’ happiness did not drop in response to their wife’s sickness.
Professor Carr thinks this is to do with who takes over the care-giving:
“We know that when a partner is sick it is the wife that often does the care giving, which can be a stressful experience.
But often when a woman gets sick it is not her husband she relies on but her daughter.”
Carr continued: “For both spouses being in a better-rated marriage was linked to greater life satisfaction and happiness.”
As I said, this is a controversial subject. In corroboration of the above, a University of California study concluded that a stable union depends on the wife’s happiness and positivity.
But a study at the University of Chicago has also indicated to the contrary that the husband’s health is a key factor in marriage quality, but suggested that the key for a happy union in fact resided with the husband.
My take from personal experience and observation of others: a mutual preoccupation of making each other happy in marriage is the best. After all, that is what love, which is essential in a marriage, is about.