Men, if you want to live longer you should get yourself a wife with a good education. That's the conclusion of a recent Swedish study that looked at more than 1.5 million people over a twelve year period.

Amazingly, the wife's level of schooling is a bigger factor in a man's risk of dying than the man's schooling.

Researchers Robert Erikson and Jenny Torssander of Stockholm’s Swedish Institute for Social Research found that women take a lead role in the home. So if a woman is educated, she is more likely to steer the family's lifestyle to healthier habits. The assumption is that women with schooling are more apt to listen to health messages than women with less of an education.

The study looked at 1990 census data of more than 1.5 million men and women, ages 30 to 59, along with cause of death data for the period 1991–2003. They found that men who live with a women with no high school diploma are 1.25 times more likely to die than men living with a college graduate. The study was published in the October Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

So start going after the smart girls if you know what's good for you.

photo credit: Alex Barth