Marriage can be a chore for women

Single women who are desperate to shed their Bridge Jones status are warned today of a major pitfall of finding their man.

Research shows that getting married prompts a 50% increase in housework. When a woman is single, ironing, cleaning, cooking and other duties take about ten hours a week. But after they are married, or have simply moved in with a boyfriend, they typically do 15 hours of housework every week, according to a report in the latest edition of Economic Journal.

For men, the effect is positive. Before getting married or starting to cohabit, they do an average of seven hours' housework a week. Afterwards that drops to five hours. The research says that men are willing to take a back seat because they think women enjoy taking control of the house and all the duties. But women say they are force to spend much more time in the kitchen sink because they are frustrated by the piles of dirty dishes left by their partners.

For many couples, the arrival of children means the housework duties multiply, and many women tend to pick up the lion's share.

The research, by the economist Helene Couprie, is based on a sample of more than 12,000 men and women in the British household Panel Survey. A spokesman for the Economic Journal said it shows that women tend to have more of a 'taste' for housework because they do more than men, even when single.

It comes as the number of couples marrying in Britain has fallen to a record low, according to official figures published this week. There were 244,710 weddings in England and Wales in 2005, a fall of 10% on the previous year.