A study of nearly 7,000 husbands and wives finds that couples who vacuum together spend more time in the bedroom together, reports Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal (10/21/09). The study (link) is actually just the latest of several on the link between scrubbing and shagging, but it's the first to find that wives really, really dig it when their husbands help mop the floors, take out the garbage, pay the bills, iron laundry or drive the kids around town. No one really understands why this is a turn-on exactly, but theories abound.

"If you're both around doing housework, that also means you are alone together, and in a place where both are relaxed and comfortable," suggests John Rogitz, who's been married for 30 years. Another husband says that sharing chores is hot because it conveys a "willingness to hold my wife's needs and wants on a par with my own." Tracy Evans meanwhile thinks that she and her husband can "definitely relax better if the house is clean." But she also warns that it has its limits, especially if it's about "this perfectionist thing where you want to get everything done."

The study's authors suppose that the results may indeed reflect a "work hard, play hard" attitude among some couples, and that "working hard in one domain produces more energy for others." Another survey (link), of about 2,000 adults, "placed 'sharing household chores' as the third most important factor in a successful marriage, behind faithfulness" and bed time. Then there was a 2003 study that "linked fathers' housework to more feelings of warmth and affection in their wives. And a survey of 288 husbands reported in Neil Chethick's 2006 book, VoiceMale, linked a wife's satisfaction with the division of household duties with her husband's satisfaction with their (love) life."