A Happy Wife is a Happy Life (really)

While on a plane on the way back to Jackson from Chicago two weeks ago, and friend handed me his copy of the Friday, October 10, Wall Street Journal, Weekend Journal. It had a number of jewels in it. A lead article on churches hiring "mystery worshippers" to do secret evaluations (the way department stores hire "mystery shoppers" and restuarants hire "mystery diners"). Then on the Taste page there was a very intriguing piece call "The 'Great Commission' or Glorified Sightseeing?" based, in part, on some research by a Calvin College sociologist Kurt Ver Beek, calling into question the value of "short-term mission trips."

But maybe the best was a piece by Megan Basham called "Who Wears the Pants." Among other gems, there was this paragraph:

"The general consensus of sociologists is that, whereas a woman's marital satisfaction is dependent on a combination of economic, emotional and psychological realities, a man's marital satisfaction is most determined by one factor: how happy his wife is. When she is happy, he is. Working within this framework, most husbands are unwilling to dig in their heels on any issue unless they have a tremendous incentive to do so."