A recent Norwegian study found that the divorce rates for couples who share housework are fifty percent higher than for couples in which the wife assumes the sole responsibility for household chores — and implicitly suggests that couples who share housework value marriage less, or that women nagging their partners about helping out around the house may lead to divorce. So much for equality between the sexes.

“The more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study (news.com). The researchers did not find a cause-and-effect relationship between the man’s duties at home, but rather chalk the higher divorce rate up to modern attitudes. “Modern couples are just that, both in the way they divide up the chores and in their perception of marriage.”

Maybe couples who share housework just don’t find marriage to be as sacred as more “traditional” couples do. So if you share housework, you aren’t as committed to your marriage?