Can Losing a Pet Hurt More Than Losing a Spouse? by Susan Pease Gadoua FROM Psychology Today

"What has been astounding to me is how many people have told me that they had a harder time when their dog died that when they split up with their spouse."

Strange Prenuptial Agreements FROM divorce360.com

One example:

"The right to perform random drug tests, with money paid as a penalty if the results were positive."

Are You Ever Too Old to Date? by Terri Orbuch, Ph.D. FROM

 "The best option, I think, for seniors looking to get back in the game is online dating."

Maybe there is a study to see which method of meeting leads marriages with the lowest divorce rates.

Why Women Don't Want Macho Men by Jena Pincott FROM The Wall Street Journal

"They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation's World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease. "

Shouting at your wife may get you a criminal record in France By Peter Allen FROM Mail Online

"It would cover men who shout at their wives and women who hurl abuse at their husbands - although it was not clear last night if nagging would be viewed as breaking the law."

Lebanon's mixed marriages FROM The Economist

"It is the religious authorities that oversee marriage, divorce and inheritance. Couples from different religions, atheists and those who do not belong to one of the officially recognised religions— for instance, Buddhists, Hindus, Bahais and members of unregistered Protestant groups—cannot marry in their home country."

Mr Muscle FROM The Economist

"The more muscular a man, the more sexual partners he reported, both in the past year and over his lifetime, and the earlier his first sexual experience was likely to have been."

Another Reason to Stay Married by Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert FROM Newsweek

"Divorce, Waite says, is really bad for your health. In fact, she has found that people who suffer marital disruption through either divorce or widowhood are 20 percent more likely to have chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer than married people."

All but the Ring: Why Some Couples Don't Wed By Lisa Selin Davis FROM TIME

"More than 5 million unmarried couples cohabit in the U.S., nearly eight times the number in 1970, and a record-breaking 40% of babies born in 2007 had unmarried parents (that's up 25% from 2002)."

Pucker up: Scientists study kissing By Elizabeth Landau FROM CNN

"A study by Gordon Gallup Jr., professor of psychology at the University of Albany, showed that 59 percent of men and 66 percent of women reported that after feeling attracted to another person initially, the attraction ended after the first kiss, Fisher said."

Want to Be My Boyfriend? Please Define By MARGUERITE FIELDS FROM The New York Times

"RECENTLY my mother asked me to clarify what I meant when I said I was dating someone, versus when I was hooking up with someone, versus when I was seeing someone. And I had trouble answering her because the many options overlap and blur in my mind. But at one point, four years ago, I had a boyfriend. And I know he was my boyfriend because he said, 'I want you to be my girlfriend,' and I said, O.K.'"

'Pleasure marriages' regain popularity in Iraq By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY

The 1,400-year-old practice of muta'a— "ecstasy" in Arabic — is as old as Islam itself. It was permitted by the prophet Mohammed as a way to ensure a respectable means of income for widowed women.

Pleasure marriages were outlawed under Saddam Hussein but have begun to flourish again. The contracts, lasting anywhere from one hour to 10 years, generally stipulate that the man will pay the woman in exchange for sexual intimacy. Now some Iraqi clerics and women's rights activists are complaining that the contracts have become less a mechanism for taking care of widows than an outlet for male sexual desires.

Women, Want a Healthy Marriage? Marry Man Uglier Than You, Study Says FROM FOXNews.com

Psychologists who studied newlyweds found men who were better-looking than their wives were more likely to be unhappy and have negative feelings about their marriage.

Click here to see Dr. Manny's blog on this study.

In couples where the wife is more attractive, both partners tended to be very content.

The research, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, suggests that, in evolutionary terms, women are less choosy about their man's looks as long as he is able to help them reproduce.

Men, however, are programmed to choose a mate who is most likely to pass on their genes and look for youth, health and physical attractiveness.

The tests involved 82 couples married within the previous six months.

Are Gay Relationships Different?

FROM Time by John Cloud

No one is sure why gay men are worse at making up after fights, but I have a theory: it's less important for their sex lives. Probably because they don't have women to restrain their evolutionarily male sexual appetites, gay men are more likely than straight and lesbian couples to agree to nonmonogamy, which decreases the stakes for not repairing. And according to a big study from Norway published in The Journal of Sex Research in 2006, gay men also consume more porn than everyone else, making them more "partner-independent."

Inside the Bizarre World of Japanese Pickup Schools

FROM Wired by Lisa Katayama

Fujita's Pickup School for Men Who Can't Get Any teaches geeky, insecure men of all ages how to gain confidence, score dates and get laid -- all based, he says, on a proprietary "science" he discovered after a decade of careful research.

"I always teach my students that sex comes first," he says. "Then you figure out whether the woman is worth marrying later."

Nepal women send condoms to their husbands working abroad

Nepal village women have been sending condoms to their husbands working abroad via mail to protect them from venereal diseases.

	Nepal women (nepal.blogspot.com)

The women in Pang village, in the midwestern mountains of Nepal , have been writing to their husbands urging them not to have sex with other women, but also mailing them condoms so that if they are unfaithful, at least they will have safe sex.

The Kantipur newspaper said that social workers have been counseling women in this remote village about sexually transmitted diseases over the past two years.

"As I learned that unsafe relations make a person vulnerable to HIV, I sent a condom along with the letters to my husband," the newspaper quoted local resident Laxmi Sunar as saying.

An estimated 3 million Nepalese work in foreign countries to support their families back in Nepal, mostly manual work in the construction industry.

Newlywed fight ends in gunfire from WKRG News

AL: Newlywed fight ends in gunfire WKRG News "Kim Brown told the Escambia County Sheriff's Office that her newlywed husband tried to attack her in the shower, so she shot him in the knee. Brown kicked David Crockett out of the house a few days ago and he had been sleeping in his vehicle in the backyard. This morning, deputies say Crockett forced his way into the house and tried to sexually assault his wife. During the attack, Brown grabbed a gun and shot Crockett. Crockett was taken to Baptist Hospital. He will be charged with Battery, False Imprisonment, Attempted Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence." (11/08/07)