For the first time, more women are marrying for love rather than for money, according to a study released this month by the Institute for Public Policy Research.
IPPR analyzed survey data from British women born between 1976 and 1981 and found that 28 percent of those polled married partners who had less education and were less wealthy than they themselves were. Just 16 percent of that group of women "married up" -- to someone with more money or education -- while most women married within their own economic class. In 1958, 38 percent of women surveyed married someone from a higher social class.
"Women are still marrying older men from the same social class as themselves, but for the first time, the proportion marrying down is higher than the proportion marrying up," IPPR's Richard Darlington told The Daily Mail.
The shift in marriage patterns may show that today's economically independent women can afford to marry whomever they'd like, instead of marrying for financial stability, like generations before them.
After all, more than 91 percent of single women said they would marry for love over money, according to in a June 2011 survey from ForbesWoman and YourTango.com.