Majority of women want men to 'pop the question': study

Researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz asked young adults about their personal preferences for marriage traditions. Overwhelmingly, both men and women said they would want the man in a relationship to propose marriage.

A substantial majority of women also responded that they would want to take their husband's last name.

In fact, not even one of 136 men surveyed believed "I would definitely want my partner to propose" and not a single woman said she "would definitely want to propose".

"I was surprised at how strong the preference was," said lead researcher Rachael D Robnett.

Robnett surveyed 277 undergraduates ages 17 to 26. She found that a substantial majority believes strongly that a man should propose marriage and a woman should take her husband's name.

Robnett said she expected some preference for traditional engagement and marriage roles, but not at such a high level, particularly among young people.

The survey was conducted in 2009-2010 among psychology majors or intended majors and was limited to heterosexual students.

"Given the prevalence of liberal attitudes among students at the university where data collection took place it is striking that so many participants held traditional preferences," she said.

"Even more surprising is that many participants overtly state that their preferences were driven by a desire to adhere to gender-role traditions," she said in a statement.

Robnett said 68.4 per cent of men answered, "I would definitely want to propose. Sixty-six per cent of women answered "I would definitely want my partner too propose".

Nearly 15 per cent of men answered, "I would kind of want to propose" and 16.9 per cent said, "It doesn't matter who proposes".

Among the 141 women surveyed, 22 per cent said, "I would kind of want my partner to propose; 2.8 per cent said they would "kind of want to propose" and 9.2 per cent answered "it doesn't matter".

On the surname question, Robnett found 60.2 per cent of women were "very willing" or "somewhat willing" to take their husband's name. Only 6.4 per cent were "very unwilling" and 11.3 per cent "somewhat unwilling." Another 22 per cent answered "neither willing nor unwilling".

The study was published in the Journal of Adolescent Research.