Forget impressing her with candlelit dinners, romantic weekends away and endless compliments.

The secret to a happy marriage is as simple as choosing a wife who is smarter than you and at least five years younger.

Scientists have developed a distinctly unromantic formula to predict how compatible a couple are, based on their ages, education and relationship history.

Academics, including Dr Emmanuel Fragniere of the University of Bath, studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship. Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples, to see which had lasted.

From this they were able to tease out the factors that create a dream marriage – and those that doom a romance to failure.

With age, they found that if the wife is five or more years older than her husband, they are more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.

Couples in which the husband is the elder by at least five years are least likely to part, the European Journal of Operational Research reports. A good education boosts a couple's chances of staying together, and the future is particularly bright if the wife has the most studying under her belt. 

Analysis of the data also showed the most stable couples were – unsurprisingly – those who have never divorced.

Curiously, couples in which one member has been through a break-up in the past are less stable than those in which both members have a history of divorce.

The report concluded: 'It appears men and women "choose" their mates on the basis of love, physical attraction, similarity of taste, beliefs and attitudes, and shared values.' But it said matching couples on 'objective factors' like age, education and cultural origin 'may help reduce divorce'.

英研究：女方聰穎又年輕 婚姻幸福秘訣

英國專家表示，男性想要有愉快幸福的婚姻，秘訣就是娶個比自己聰明、年紀至少小個5歲的妻子。

「英國廣播公司」（BBC）報導，根據巴斯大學（Bath University）團隊研究，擁有上述條件的夫妻維持較長久的婚姻關係，如果雙方都是第一次結婚，白頭偕老的比率更高。

若是根據這項研究結果預測，28歲的美國流行歌手碧昂絲（Byonce Knowles）與39歲的饒舌歌手傑斯（Jay-Z）這對夫妻應該會有幸福未來。

這項研究發佈於「歐洲經營研究期刊」（European Journal Of Operational Research）。

學者訪問超過1500對夫妻或認真交往的情侶，5年後追蹤其中1000多對，看看他們是否還在一起。

他們發現，若是妻子比丈夫大至少5歲，離婚率要比夫妻同齡高出3倍。如果年齡差距反過來，也就是男人比女人大，那麼婚姻幸福的比率較高。

如果女方的教育程度較高，就像碧昂絲與傑斯夫妻（碧昂絲有高中學歷，傑斯則否），永浴愛河的機會也較高。

沒有離婚紀錄的人，婚姻也比較容易成功。但若夫妻只有一方離過婚，他們的婚姻過程會比雙方都離過婚來的曲折。

法傑尼教授（Dr. Emmanuel Fragniere）和他的同事表示，男人和女人選擇伴侶的「基礎應該是相愛、互相吸引，品味、信念、態度相近，以及共同的價值觀」。

但他們也表示，利用年齡、教育程度以及文化背景等「客觀條件」衡量，「或許對降低離婚率會有幫助」。

2009/10/27 中央社 戴雅真

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1222932/Why-pays-younger-smarter-wife.html#ixzz0V7VG3L3O