Your Partner's Height May Be Able To Predict The Success Of Your Relationship

If nothing else, this could be a great excuse to chuck all your uncomfortable high heels.

The key to a successful relationship is ... communication? Good sex? Shared interests? Nope, none of the above. According to a new study, it's actually height. We may not mean to be, but apparently we're pretty superficial creatures.

By analyzing data from 7,850 married women, researchers from Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea found that the greater the height difference in a heterosexual couple, the happier the wife was.

But why? Well, evolution probably has something to do with it.

"This is similar to people favouring fatty, salty, and sugary foods without knowing exactly why: such foods are essential to survival but were scarce as humans evolved — hence craving such foods increased reproductive fitness in the past," writes researcher Kitae Sohn in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

And, apparently, the female preference for male height did increase women’s reproductive fitness (in other words, it made them more fertile).

"Women evolved to prefer tall men because they were perceived to be stronger, and naturally they are happy when they have what they like," writes Sohn.

But there's no need to panic, vertically challenged men of the world. We have no idea what other factors might be at play here, like societal influences, for example. Plus, the researchers also found that, like other objects of our desire, pleasure from having them eventually dissipates. After 18 years, height's appeal was gone. Just like that.