Gay Divorce Shocker

LESBIAN DIVORCE SHOCKER: Same-sex marriages between women are considerably more likely to end in divorce than either same-sex male marriages or heterosexual marriages, according to a study of Norway and Sweden.

In the original study, the differences are described this way:

 "...divorce risk in [gay] partnerships of men appears 50 percent higher than the corresponding risk in heterosexual marriages, and that the divorce risk in [lesbian] partnerships of women is about the double of that of men."

These differences have been commonly noted on an anecdotal level, but here the pattern is documented in a systematic study. What's going on is almost certainly a matter of the authority structure in these marriages -- in every kind of social group, including baboon troops, the less stable and clearly defined the authority structure, the greater the internal conflict. If that's right, then the problem is to figure out why female marriage partners have so much trouble deciding who's in charge. As quoted below, the researchers think it might be because female partners are more similar to each other than are male-male or male-female partners.

To extrapolate a bit, when it comes to adoption, don't these results suggest that female-female households are the most conflictual and the least stable, and therefore the least desirable for placing an adoptive child?  That question is an example of why, with this publication, these authors are quickly going to find that their professional lives have suddenly become much more...um...exciting.  In the social sciences, you poke the PC hornets' nest at your peril, and they have poked it.

Byron