The US Pew Research Centre released a report recently headlined, "Sharing chores a key to good marriage, say majority of married adults."
Hurray for a fair division of labour!
But what the report also states, if you read a little further, is that good sex is a bigger deal.
On a list of factors deemed "very important" to a successful marriage, married people ranked "satisfying sexual relationship" higher than almost every other item - higher than sharing household chores, higher than shared religious beliefs, higher, even, than adequate income.
Which leaves me with two thoughts. One: Marriage doesn't look the way it used to. Two: We don't really give people the tools to be successful at it.
Based on data from Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Study, which was a survey of more than 35,000 adults conducted from March to May 2015, the report looked at what married respondents - with and without children - considered necessary for a successful marriage.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said a "satisfying sexual relationship," while 56 percent said "sharing household chores," 47 percent said "shared religious beliefs," 43 percent said "having children" and 42 percent said "adequate income."
At the bottom of the list was "agreement on politics" (16 percent), and at the top of the list was "having shared interests" (64 percent - the only factor ranked higher than a satisfying sex life).
Now I ask you: During your formative years - when you were starting to look around for someone to date, someone to love, someone to spend your life with - how many trusted, competent role models taught you how to have a satisfying sex life?
How many trusted, competent role models taught you how to evenly distribute household chores, for that matter?
How about once you were married?
Marriage, as scholars will tell you, has changed dramatically over the last century. It's no longer necessary for child-bearing, financial stability or social acceptance - it may grease the wheels for them, but it's not mandatory.
And once marriage is entered into, providing those basics isn't always enough to deem your union a success.
We're hungry for connection, and we want our marriages to offer it - in the bedroom and out of it. ("Shared interests!")
As marital researcher Eli Finkel, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, once told me, marriage is a social construct that has evolved throughout human history and continues to do so.
"The best marriages today are better than the best marriages in any other generation, and that's because, for the first time ever, we're looking to marriage to do a very different set of things," he said.
"It's about taking the time and exerting the effort to understand and discover what your partner is trying to achieve in life - and what you're trying to achieve in life - to help each other find the best versions of yourselves. These things are a lot more difficult to achieve than what we've traditionally asked of marriage, but they're exponentially more fulfilling."
Given the positive role that a successful marriage can play in a person's life - it's linked to better emotional and physical health - it would be wise to give young people the tools they need to achieve those goals.
Comprehensive sex education, with an emphasis on more than just avoiding pregnancy and disease, would be good start.
As author and sex educator Al Vernacchio says, it's time to stop teaching our kids that sex will either ruin their lives or kill them.
But research shows that's mostly what we do.
"I don't see how it's possible to say, 'No, don't, danger, be careful ... now go have a healthy relationship,' " Vernacchio, author of "For Goodness Sex: Changing the Way We Talk to Teens About Sexuality, Values and Health" (HarperWave), once told me.
The Pew report is eye-opening, and I think it's worth taking to heart as we help prepare our children - and ourselves - to be good at marriage.
The secret to success is connection. And we shouldn't keep that such a secret.
Chicago Tribune