Written by Robert Warden

A consistent finding is that married people seem more likely to vote Republican, a finding which may support my hypothesis. However, there are various other possible explanations for this finding, including most notably that older voters are more likely to be married, and perhaps were more likely to have been poltically conservative and thus Republican throughout their entire lives. In other words, it appears most likely that this is what is known as a “cohort effect” — an effect of the times in which older people grew up as compared to younger people. Of course, if it is true — as it appears to be — that younger voters have grown up with a more progressive mindset than older voters, that would be very good news for the progressive cause.

Another finding is that women are more likely to be Democrats than are men, regardless of age. That is, for any particular age group, women of that age are more likely to be Democrats than are men of that age. That, at least to a degree, argues against the idea that women are being subservient to men and converted into Republicans as they get married, grow older and come under the influence of their husbands. I also ran across various articles about wives who defy their Republican husbands and vote for Democrats, including military wives. Fortunately, American women tend not to be subservient patsies.

Yet, I can’t help but think that acquiescence to the husband’s political wishes is a factor in some subcultures, such as especially the “religious right,” in which women are told to defer to their husbands, along with the wives of all these male Republican politicians. What do you think?

By the way, there are plenty of people offering opinions on such topics in public forums, I found, but little in the way of scientific or polling data, and indeed, this might be a difficult (but not impossible) topic to study due to its complexity and lack of amenability to laboratory research.