Study: washing dishes can ruin a marriage

It is proved that this obligation is playing an increasingly important role in family relationships than any other work on the house.

Women who have to handle the dirty work alone feel disadvantaged.

Daniel Carlson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Utah.

Dirty dishes accumulate every day: plates, bowls with a thin layer of fat, soiled utensils. At the end of a hard day, after several hours at the stove and care with young children, spouses before the question arises: who will wash the dishes?

in the reportStalled for Whom? Change in the Division of Particular Housework Tasks and Their Consequences for Middle- to Low-Income Couples Council of Contemporary Families (Council of modern families), a nonprofit organization that studies the dynamics relations in married couples, said that the answer to this question can greatly affect family relationship.

The study examined a number of different household tasks, including the quest for food, laundry and cleaning. It turned out that women in heterosexual relationships is more important to share responsibility for washing dishes than other things around the house.

In families where the woman washes the dishes one, there is more conflict, family life does not bring happiness, and there are problems in sex.

The couple who share this responsibility equally, things are better.

According to Daniel Carlson, the lead author of the study, the most dirty and unpleasant tasks women perform household chores. Most often this cleaning for others: laundry, washing dishes or toilet. Men in this time of taking out the trash or washing machine - carry cases in which they do not face each day with another mud.

Over the past few decades, the proportion of male participation in household chores has increased. Today, men do the housework in an average of four hours per week, as opposed to two hours in 1965. It is noted that from 1999 to 2006, the proportion of couples who do the dishes together, increased from 16 to 29%. On the other hand, this figure is even more annoying women who have a family, nothing has changed.

Washing dishes does not require much effort, but your relationship can become stronger. Do it together much easier and faster. For example, one can be washed while the other - to wipe. Or one rinses the dishes, and the other loads them into the dishwasher.

Carlson said: "My wife and I can do everything together: taking out the trash or clean the toilet." But it makes the couple washing dishes work together until the end. Such teamwork, especially on a regular basis, stronger links partners. They begin to feel that they can cope with it all together.