Folklore has long held that men do less housework than women. And now science jumps into the fray with a study reported in the Journal of Family Issues . And this large, multicultural study suggests that the trend for men to do fewer chores is much more apparent in married couples than in couples who live together without the sanction of church and state.

Sociologist Shannon Davis, from George Mason University led a team that collected data from over 17,000 couples from 28 countries. This cross sectional study found that men cohabitating with women did more household chores than married men. Conversely, married women did more household tasks than cohabitating women.

Another interesting finding from this study is that couples who report seeing the roles of men and women as being more equal do a better job of equally dividing household chores. That is until the wedding bells chime; then even in egalitarian relationships men end up doing less household work than their wives. The authors conclude that it is the institution of marriage that changes the division of labor. Society has over generations defined what the institution of marriage should look like, and this includes women doing the bulk of the chores. So as a group, married couples end up behaving in a manner defined by society even if the individuals in a particular marriage make a conscious decision to act in a more egalitarian manner.

This finding rings with more truth than I care to admit. The history of my marriage has certainly seen an increase in the inequality of the division of labor. And this research argues that my relationship is not unique in this regard. Sure, we can argue for the effects of social relativism but getting stuck with increasing amounts of housework would not be greeted favorably were I the one who was presumed to have that responsibility. One of the more consistent findings I have seen in looking at several sets of data on marital satisfaction is that women are much, much less satisfied with how household chores get done than are men. And it is not a trivial issue in the overall satisfaction of the marriage. This seemingly implicit tendency for married men to relax when it comes to pulling our fair share around the house seems to have outlived any viable social role and may instead just reflect bad manners.