Imagine my surprise and delight to find, while catching up on the New York Times upon returning home from the national ACLU membership conference, this article. Science writer Tara Parker-Pope suggests that gay marriages should set the standard for heteros, citing a Vermont study of married couples (straight and gay) after Vermont instituted civil unions. The findings:
Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.
While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.
Gay couples "fought more fairly" and showed fewer physical signs of stress after a fight. The hypothesis was that these couples were better at seeing each other's point of view and therefore became less irrational during fights.
It's an interesting hypothesis, but the article isn't clear whether all couples in the sample were married. It is rational to assume that gay married couples might have healthier relationships, on average than straight married couples. Since gay couples had a longer wait to marry, couples with insoluble problems or difficult relationship are much more likely to split up before marriage was available. Additionally, gay couples are less likely than straights to rush into marriage either due to pregnancy or a desire for its fruits. Without additional data on how long the couples had been together before any kind of committment ceremony, the data aren't really conclusive.
Regardless of the reason, the behavior modelled by the gay couples is positive. The
NYT Magazine cover story is on families that try equal parenting (as opposed to either gender-normed or egalitarian). Is it progress? Maybe, but I can't help but feel relentless scheduling deals only with symptoms, but play-acting at equal parenting may lead to children who live what their parents modeled.
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