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WHEN it comes to choosing a mate, both sexes are 'heightist'.
Men choose shorter females as partners, and women choose taller males. That should cause no surprise: men are, on average, taller than women. But evidence shows that partnerships such as that between jazz pianist Jamie Cullum (5ft 4in) and model Sophie Dahl (5ft 11in) are even less common than statistics would suggest.
In the first study to examine how partner preferences translate into actual choices, researchers analysed results for 10,000 couples across the UK.
They found that in more than nine out of 10 couples (92.5 per cent) the man was taller. On average, men were 5ft 10in tall and women 5ft 4in.
As some women are tall and some men short, it would be expected that the height relationship would be reversed in some partnerships. On average, if men and women were randomly sorted into couples, one in 200 pairings would involve a taller woman.
Yet, in practice, that is true of only one in 720 couples. Jamie Cullum and Sophie Dahl's relationship is rare indeed. (© Independent News Service)
Irish Independent
