Scientists find formula for the perfect wife

I am no expert in the scientific community, but a "perfect wife" sounds a little too strange as a concept. The research for perfect wife was led by Nguyen Vi Cao of HES-SO School of Business Administration in Carouge, Switzerland (University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland).

The study looked at 1,074 couples aged between 19 and 75 years, to find which social factors were most important to a long and happy relationship. It came out with the following guidelines -

• The husband should be 5 years older to the wife.
• Husband and wife should be of the same heritage.
• Wife should be 27% more intelligent than the husband.
• Wife should hold a degree while he shouldn't.
• Don't marry a divorcee.

The study says that if you follow the above guidelines, then you will increase the chances of a long marriage by 20%.

The study is set to be published in the European Journal of Operational Research in April 2010 edition and the paper is called “Optimizing the marriage market: An application of the linear assignment model.”and is authored by Nguyen Vi Cao, Emmanuel Fragnière, Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, Marlène Sapin and Eric D. Widmer.

Check the abstract from the paper -

Research shows that the success of marriages and other intimate partnerships depends on objective attributes such as differences in age, cultural background, and educational level. This article proposes a mathematical approach to optimizing marriage by allocating spouses in such a way as to reduce the likelihood of divorce or separation. To produce our optimization model, we use the assumption of a central “agency” that would coordinate the matching of couples. Based on a representative and longitudinal sample of 1074 cohabiting and married couples living in Switzerland, we estimate various objective functions corresponding to age, education, ethnicity, and prior divorce concerning every possible combination of men and women. Our results show that the current state of marriages or partnerships is well below the social optimum. We reallocate approximately 68% of individuals (7 out of 10) to a new couple that we posit has a higher likelihood of survival. From this selection of new partners, we obtain our final “optimal” solutions, with a 21% reduction in the objective function.Source: www.sciencedirect.com

You might be wondering, what is Operations research? You are in luck, because one of my best friends work in the field and he pointed me to this definition (wikipedia) -

Operations research, also known as operational research, is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics and formal science that uses advanced analytical methods such as mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, and mathematical optimization to arrive at optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex decision-making problems. It is often concerned with determining the maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost) of some real-world objective. Originating in military efforts before World War II, its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries.

I do understand that finding a bride or a husband is a complex decision making problem, but not sure if the guidelines work for all of us. More research needed?