Ball and chain? How convict ships led to happier marriages

TRANSPORTATION to Australia was undoubtedly a grim experience for 18th and 19th-century convicts, many of whom had only committed petty crimes in Britain.

But a new study has shown there was one unexpected benefit from the dubious practice: happier marriages that have lasted to this day.

According to researchers at the University of New South Wales, so many men were sent to Australia that it dramatically altered the sex ratio between men and women. As a consequence, women were prized and so could choose better husbands who were more capable providers and were less likely to stray. It meant both sexes enjoyed marriages that were stronger, stable and happier and fostered a highly respectful attitude towards women that has lasted more than 150 years, the authors conclude.

Pauline Grosjean, of the School of Economics from the University of New South Wales, said: “This inadvertent sociological experiment changed mating market conditions.

“We find that both men and women are happier, and the happiness gap within married couples is smaller in areas where convict-era sex ratios were heavily male-biased.

“One interpretation of this result is that, because women have higher bargaining powers, they are more picky and search for a better match, and as an indirect effect, those men who do marry also benefit from this better match quality. A second possibility is that married men’s happiness is contingent on the happiness of their wives.

“The study establishes for the first time that these effects persist and still influence women’s relationship and life satisfaction over 150 years later.”

Between 1787 and 1868 around 157,000 convicts were transported by the British Government to penal colonies in Australia, with men outnumbering women by approximately 16 to one. Their numbers altered the local population so greatly in penal colony areas, that by 1820 there were three men for every woman.

The research was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.