Michelle Basch, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – These days, more couples are bucking tradition and doing things like getting married in a fast-food restaurant or on a roller coaster.
But a new study finds one longtime wedding tradition is likely not going away.
Nearly 300 undergrads at the University of California, Santa Cruz, all of them heterosexual, were asked if they thought it was acceptable if a woman proposed marriage to a man, instead of the other way around.
Two-thirds said they definitely want the man to propose, and not a single man said his first choice would be for a woman to pop the question.
None of the 277 surveyed “definitely” wanted the woman to propose.
Rachael Robnett, a grad student in psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and one of the researchers on the study tells LiveScience she thinks the results are surprising since the school is considered liberal-leaning.
The point of the study was to find out whether benevolent sexism is the reason why the man is usually in charge of the proposal, and the woman typically takes her husband’s name.
Results of the study are published in the Journal of Adolescent Research.
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