Intimate Relationship

Intimate Relationship

Intimate relationship or partnership formation (marriage) affects the level of happiness in individuals. It is agreed in different school of thought that intimate relationship or marriage has a positive influence on total well being. In Social sciences, it is believed that marriage has a positive and enduring effect on well-being (Waite 1995; Waite and Lehrer 2003; also in economics, Frey and Stutzer 2002; Layard 2005). However there is a contrary consensus to such agreement. An article in a renowned psychological journal by Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, and Diener (2003) showed after a 15 years (1984 to 1998) of study, that such happiness is temporal and only last a period of two years. Typically, people revert two years after marriage to the same “baseline” level of life satisfaction that prevailed two years before the marriage. It was concluded that people adapt quickly and completely to marriage. This adaptation means that they return to their baseline which they were 2 years before going into the marriage. It was concluded that a person's subjective well-being tends to center around a setpoint determined by genetics and personality, and major life transitions and events merely deflect a person temporarily from this level. David G. Myers (2000: 60).

Human beings are interested in sex. There are also scientific reasons to study it. New work by Daniel Kahneman, Alan Krueger, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz and Arthur Stone (Kahneman et al 2003) finds, among a sample of 1000 employed women, that sex is rated retrospectively as the activity that produces the single largest amount of happiness. Commuting to and from work produces the lowest levels of happiness. These two activities come top and bottom, respectively, of a list of 19 activities. In intimate relationship or marriage, people will have active sex lives. National Health and Social Life Survey show ...