In Marriage, Short Guys Keep the Girl

The short guy doesn't always get the girl, but when he does, he usually gets to keep her. So says a new study in the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that short guys, defined as those shorter than 5-foot-7, are about 18% less likely to marry than their taller counterparts, but when they do, they divorce at lower rates—to the tune of 32% lower, reports the New Republic. Divorce rates for tall and average guys, meanwhile, are basically the same.

"This probably means that women who don't want to be in a relationship with short men are more likely to leave before they get married, rather than after," one researcher tells the Washington Post. Or more simply: "There’s something distinct about the women who marry short men." But it's not quite clear what's distinct, because shorter men appear to be the heavyweights in the relationship: Their partners tend to be younger, less educated women, who earn less than they do. Some 78% of short men out-earn their partners, as opposed to 69% of average and 71% of tall men. (More egalitarian marriages, meanwhile, often involve less sex.)