House Husbands’ More Prone To Infidelity

A new study has shown that men whose wives are breadwinners in the home are more likely to cheat on their wives. Simply put, househusbands or husbands who are financially dependent on their wives are more likely to cheat on the wife. According to the study, there is a 15 per cent chance that a man that is financially dependent on his wife would have an affair, while it is just five per cent chance for women to cheat on their husbands if the husband is the breadwinner.

Given that previous studies have estimated that between 20 and 25 per cent of married men engage in extramarital affairs while between 10 and 15 per cent of married women do same, this study seems to give a fresh reason to why men and women have roving eyes, and in this case, it has to do with their income.

The study, published in American Sociological Review, revealed that the more financially dependent a man is on his wife, the more likely he is to cheat on her, and that men who are 100 per cent dependent on their wives financially are three times more likely to cheat than sit-at-home wives.

According to the study, carried out by Christin Munsch, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, United States, such men do so because they may likely be undergoing masculinity threat or their ego may be at stake, hence, they tend to do things that are culturally associated with masculinity.

Munsch told CNN, “I think it has to do with our cultural notions of what it means to be a man and what the social expectations are for masculinity. Being economically dependent on their wives may threaten their manhood, and having an affair is a way to re-establish their masculinity, even if it’s all done subconsciously.

“It has been shown that when men in particular undergo gender identity threats, they engage in hypermasculine behaviours, and sex is one of the most sort of gender-typed behaviours.”

Munsch noted that the bigger the pay gap between the wife’s income and the husband’s income, the more likely the man will cheat and that women who earn far less than their husbands are less likely to have extramarital affair. She added that the most faithful wives are those who earn 100 per cent of the couple’s income who usually go out of their way to be good wives to assuage their husband’s deficiency.

In the study carried out between 2001 and 2011, about 2,750 heterosexual couples between ages 18 and 32 participated in the study, focusing on how much each person contributed to the total income in the home and then tracked who cheated on who. It was found that such men who depend on their wives financially tend to engage in infidelity as a way of doing what other men do and a sense of security because men sometimes define masculinity in terms of their sexual exploit.

She said, “You would think that people would not want to ‘bite the hand that feeds them’ so to speak, but that is not what my research shows. Instead, the findings indicate people like feeling relatively equal in their relationships and people don’t like to feel dependent on another person,” she said.

“Extramarital sex allows men undergoing masculinity threat – not being primary breadwinners, as is culturally expected — to engage in behaviour culturally associated with masculinity. For men, especially young men, the dominant definition of masculinity is scripted in terms of sexual virility and conquest, particularly with respect to multiple sex partners. Thus, engaging in infidelity may be a way of re-establishing their threatened masculinity.

“Not only were men more likely to cheat because their ego was at stake, they could win back their masculinity while distancing themselves, and even punishing, the breadwinning spouse. Infidelity allows such a man to feel a sense of security at the risk of making the relationship less secure.”

The study however stressed that such women try to minimise their achievements in order to help their husbands reinstate their masculinity. They also tend to pamper their husbands more by not holding them accountable for housework typically deemed too feminine – all in a bid to keep their relationship intact.

Also, in comparison, the study pointed out that men who make significantly more money than their wives are also likely to cheat because they feel such women are truly dependent and may think that, as a result, their wives will not leave them even if they cheat.

Munsch added, “When the amount of money men make comes closer to their wives’ contribution, the odds of them cheating decreases, but as soon as a man’s wife is completely financially dependent on him, another kind of mindset feeds a man’s drive to cheat. When men are the breadwinners, they are aware of it, and may assume their wives won’t leave them because of their dependency and because they are in charge.”

Reacting to the study, a professor of psychology, Oni Fagboungbe, said contrary to the findings of the study, a man whose wife is the breadwinner would be living a parasitic life on the wife, and would rather shy away from such more so that he might not have enough money needed to do such.

“A woman might do that to augment her income but a man who has no job would likely be taking money from the wife, which he may not likely use to pursue such. Being in that position is enough for a man to make him succumb totally to the wife and avoid doing things that anger her or make her renege on her obligations towards him,” he added.