Artists and Scientists: An Analysis of Marital Status and Stability

Abstract

The authors hypothesize higher degrees of role ambivalence for female artists and scientists than for male artists, and especially male scientists. Likewise, they predict that female professionals in this sample are less likely to marry or to have stable marriages than male professionals. However, contrary to these predictions, male artists are more similar to female professionals than to male scientists, and female scientists were not characterized by the highest divorce rates. In fact, female scientists were less likely to be divorced or separated than male artists. In short, male artists represent the greatest departure from the patterns observed by other researchers. The analysis concludes with a comprehensive review of factors which may be useful in explaining the striking differences between male scientists and male artists with respect to marital status and stability.