http://www.salon.com/life/sex/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/03/08/happy_monogamy

An expert explains why the link between happiness and monogamy is more complicated than it seems

By Tracy Clark-Flory

Ross Douthat's pro-monogamy argument in yesterday's New York Times came as no surprise. But the conservative columnist's claim that monogamy "increases the odds that [women's] adult sexual lives will be a source of joy rather than sorrow" did make me wonder: What do we really know about the connection between promiscuity and happiness?

Not much, it turns out. Douthat based his assertion on recent research by sociologists Jeremy Uecker and Mark Regnerus -- who I interviewed earlier this year. As he summarized, the study found that "the happiest women were those with a current sexual partner and only one or two partners in their lifetime." He also noted that a "young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed and the present stability of her sex life diminished." But we all know that correlation is not causation, right? These findings don’t tell us whether it's sleeping around that triggers depression. All we know is that there is an association between the two that could be explained any number of ways.