The largest and most comprehensive study of singles in the United States has been released just in time for Valentine's Day, and the surprising results dispel long-held beliefs about singles, according to Match.com which commissioned the survey, entitled "Single in America."
The study included 5,200 single men and women between the ages of 21 and 65.
"[The study] is based on the [U.S.] Census Bureau. We have the right number of people from each region, right number of men, right number of women, age groups from 21 to 65 plus," Dr. Helen Fisher, a cultural anthropologist, told ABC News.
Fisher helped conduct the survey in conjunction with the Institute of Evolutionary Studies at Binghamton University.
"We've known for a long time that we're seeing growing economic equality between the sexes, but it was surprising to me that men are adopting some of the attitudes that we've long attributed to women, and women are adopting the attitudes that we've long attributed to men," said Fisher, who is the chief scientific advisor to Chemistry.com, a division of Match.com.
Men are stereotyped as being less interested in settling down and having children than women, but the study shows otherwise.
"Men in just about every cohort are just as eager to marry or more eager to marry as women are. It's not true that they don't want to commit. Particularly young men, age 21 to 34, are more eager to marry than women are. Throughout every single cohort, men are more eager to have children than women are."
According to the study, 51% of men and 46% of women want to have children between the ages of 21 and 34, which are peak reproductive years.
"[Men] also fall in love faster, they're more likely to bring a woman home to introduce her to their parents sooner, they're more likely to marry a woman who's got everything they're looking for in a partner but they're not sexually attracted to that person, than a woman is," said Fisher.
The study found that 54% of men say they have experienced love at first sight, compared to 41% of women.
Jacinta Oduro KwartengPolice at Korle-Bu have arrested a 27 year old woman, Jacinta Oduro Kwarteng, for stealing and selling a two-week old baby.
Jacinta, a resident of Agege beach road in Accra, sold the baby for GH¢300.
Sergeant Josephine Opoku, the investigator told DAILY GUIDE that on Monday, January 31, 2011, the baby’s mother; 24-year old Millicent Williams had gone to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra for a review.
She had by then been asked to go home and report on Thursday since the doctor was not available.
She approached Jacinta who was wearing a matron’s uniform seated behind the nurses’ desk at the Out Patient Department (OPD) at the Maternity Block to enable her to weigh the baby.
But even before she could ask her a question, Jacinta approached Millicent and demanded to know whether she could be of any assistance and the new mother told her she wanted her baby weighed.
Posing as a senior nurse, the suspect offered to help her to see a doctor in addition to accompanying Millicent to the central laboratory for her lab report.
As they walked to the car park of the Maternity Block, Jacinta convinced the nursing mother to wait while she (Jacinta) went back to the victim’s aunt, one Joyce Abaka, claiming that Millicent had asked her to come for the baby since she (Millicent) could not see the doctor without her.
Obviously not aware of her Jacinta’s ulterior motive, the woman handed over the baby to Jacinta, who took her away.
After waiting for a while without Jacinta showing up, Millicent decided to go for her baby from her aunt.
Upon reaching there, Millicent realized her aunt was not holding the baby. The aunt asked her niece whether she was not the one who instructed the nurse to come for the child.
That was when they both realized they had been swindled.
But all efforts to locate the woman and the stolen child proved unsuccessful since they were nowhere to be found in the entire hospital vicinity after security men had combed everywhere.
When the police managed to locate the baby-thief’s house along the beach road in Agege, a suburb of Accra on Monday, she had moved out.
The victim’s family however managed to locate her the following day in a house at Dansoman Last Stop and got some policemen to arrest her to the Korle-Bu police station, where a complaint had been lodged.
Upon interrogation, Jacinta said she sold the baby to a certain woman whose name she could not give for GH¢300.
But when she took the police to the buyer’s house, she was nowhere to be found.
The buyer who is currently at large is believed to be either hiding somewhere around Bubiashie, Accra or Asamankese in the Eastern region.
The police have since mounted a search for the buyer and asked members of the public to help them with any information that would lead to her arrest.
Meanwhile, management of the hospital has set up an ad-hoc committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Director of Medical Affairs, Professor Efua Hesse, confirmed this yesterday.
Abdul Salam
Since last week, members of the Ghana Cinematograph Exhibition Board of Control have been at their wits end trying to unravel how a top Ghanaian movie producer fooled them into passing an obviously pornographic movie for general sale to the public.
The producer, Abdul Salam Mumuni of Venus Films, one of the fine movie producers in the country and a multiple awards winner has since December last year, been selling a movie on the streets and in shops in Accra and Kumasi with the title Dirty Secrets which can only be categorized as soft porn.
Some movie enthusiasts who have bought copies of the said movie have been so disgusted with what they saw that they have raised concerns over the work of the Cinematograph Board which is authorized by law to preview and classify all movies meant for distribution in Ghana.
Indeed, one such enthusiast personally carried her copy of the offending movie to the offices of the Board to make a complaint. “How can this movie be sold here in Ghana without he Board knowing about it?”, she asked. Surprisingly, the Board knew about the movie. According to records from a register that was shown to Showbiz last Tuesday at the Board’s secretariat located in the offices of the Information Services Department in Accra, the said movie was passed on December 15 last year.
According to Mr. A.G. Amamoo, Assistant Director of Information Services and secretary to the Board, the movie was presented by Abdul Salam Mumuni’s outfit for preview in December. When a panel of the Board saw it, they found some portions of the movie unwholesome and advised the producer to take it back and edit those portions before the movie could be put out on the market.
Obediently, the producers went away and returned days later with an edited copy of the movie which was subsequently classified as A (for adult viewing) and passed. The Board could as well as saved their time and energy.
Even before the classification certificate could be issued by the Board, copies of Dirty Secrets were already selling like hot ‘aboloo’ on the market and these copies were not the edited version. This one contained all the unwholesome portions of bouts of sex, incest and sodomy that the Board had recommended to be removed.
Two days ago, when Showbiz contacted Mr. Ken Addy, a member of the Board whose name appeared in the register as one of the members of the panel who previewed the movie, he was beside himself with disgust and collaborated what Mr. Amamoo, the secretary of the Board had told Showbiz earlier.
Mr. Addy recommended that a serious view be taken of the incident. “I think that it is incumbent on the Board to take drastic action against any producer who is found to distribute a film without the necessary authorisation.“Even in the absence of a new Information Bill, the 1965 law still says it is an offence so why should the Board and the Ministry not punish offenders?”.
The producer was obviously exploiting a supervisory inadequacy in the work of the Board which only gives a go ahead to producers without any enforcement role. But Abdul Salam Mumuni denies that he deliberately attempted to fool the Board.
Taking some time off his shooting schedule on location last Tuesday, he told Showbiz over the phone that he did not produce the film himself and that he only acquired the rights to distribute in Ghana from a Nigerian producer.
He denied that he intended to fool the Board. “What happened was that by the time the Board gave us the go ahead, the copies had already been made in Nigeria and shipped to Ghana.” He expressed his regret over the matter and said he had ordered all remaining copies to be retrieved from the market.
Similar comments were made by Stephen Hackman, President of Film Distributors Association of Ghana. He told Showbiz that the incident was unfortunate and he had personally had discussions with Deputy Minister of Information Mr. Agyenim Boateng who acts as President of the Board on behalf of the minister over the matter and Mumuni has been asked to retrieve all copies of the movie form the market.
The request appears to have come too late as producers are known to maximise the sale of the new movies in the week of their release. This particular movie has been on the market for over six weeks.
In May last year, the Minister of Information, John Tia Akologo, appalled by the large number of complaints from the general public over the presence of indecent films on the market disbanded the Board and reconstituted it with the aim of sanitizing the film exhibition systems.
