CHICAGO—Citing it as the telltale indicator of long-term marital satisfaction, a report released Wednesday by the Family Institute at Northwestern University found that the sole predictor of a successful marriage is whether or not the husband ever won a big stuffed animal for his wife at a county fair or amusement park. “Whether it’s achieved by knocking over three milk cans with a ball or filling a clown’s mouth with a jet of water, we noted a direct correlation between the quality of love two married people experience and whether or not the husband ever successfully won a carnival game and thereby earned his wife a giant plush Tweety Bird or fuzzy blue bear,” said lead researcher Aaron Tolchinsky, who noted that if the husband pointed to the largest prize and said “You want that? I’ll get it for you,” before winning it, the couple had a 94 percent chance of reporting high levels of emotional, intellectual, and sexual fulfillment. “In addition, the size of the stuffed animal won for a wife was extremely accurate in predicting levels of satisfaction, with smaller prizes like rubber finger puppets or plastic backscratchers resulting in higher incidences of dissatisfaction and divorce.” The report added that if on the way home from a fair a husband tenderly placed his jacket over his wife’s shoulders, statistics indicated they would die of old age on the very same day.

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