While there are no physical components to having a successful relationship, according to a 2002 study, your height may predict how happy you’ll be in a relationship.
People frequently debate whether it’s better to be tall or short. Being short does have its disadvantages, like not being able to reach whatever is on the top shelf, but it’s not all bad. A study suggests that women who are on the shorter side have a distinct advantage when it comes to cultivating happy and healthy relationships. But it’s interesting to note that the opposite is true for men.
Some of this seems to be explained by evolution, but that also doesn’t work in all cases.
New Scientist reported that the study was conducted in the U.K., where the average height of women is 5 feet 4 inches. (For comparison, the average height of a woman in the U.S. is just half an inch shorter.) Women on the lower end of the height spectrum, from five feet tall to five-foot-three, were typically in solid relationships with kids by age 42. The same couldn’t be said for taller women.
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The study didn’t just examine women; statistics were collected about men, too. It wasn’t very surprising that the women polled said they liked men who were “taller than average” better, with most naming six feet as the ideal height.
It makes sense that women would prefer taller men, just from an evolutionary standpoint. Research from 2015 proved that our caveman ancestors’ minds equated someone being taller with the belief that that person was better equipped to protect others from threats like rabid mastodons and saber-tooth tigers.
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Shorter women actually have a higher statistical likelihood of serious childbirth complications that could lead to death, meaning they should be seen as less viable long-term relationship partners from an evolutionary standpoint.
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Daniel Nettle, a professor at the Open University, led the research team and tried to make sense of this. He stated, “We know that men are drawn to things that in our evolutionary past would have been a cue for fertility. And in one sense, tallness is a negative cue — tall women reach puberty later, and probably their secondary sexual characteristics develop somewhat later.”
So, if Nettle is right, shorter women completing puberty earlier make them better candidates for reproduction. It’s an interesting theory that sort of goes against what we understand about evolution, since he also noted that being shorter has nothing to do with higher levels of fertility.
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The idea that women prefer men who are tall is far from just a stereotype presented in rom-coms. Multiple other studies have also found that women just like taller men more. However, other studies have revealed that men prefer women who are taller or “average.”
Although there’s no clear consensus on why, taller people are generally healthier, wealthier, and better educated. This could explain why women like taller men, and men seem to like taller women in some cases as well.
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The way that different research on the subject seems to be conflicted could point to something deeper entirely, though. Maybe a partner’s ideal height really is just a matter of personal preference, and maybe there’s no real way to predict that.
At the same time, it could also mean that someone’s personality really is far more important than their appearance. Everyone has a perfect image in their minds, but that doesn’t mean it will actually correlate to who they’re able to have a happy and successful relationship with.
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Rebecca Jane Stokes is the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek, and former Senior Staff Writer for YourTango. Her bylines have appeared on Fatherly, Bustle, SheKnows, Jezebel, and many others.
