For many, a successful marriage can be put down to attraction, devotion, patience – and true love. But one group of statisticians begs to differ.

    They have developed a distinctly unromantic formula to predict how compatible a couple are based on their ages, education and previous divorces.

    The experts claim their theory can tell in advance that some couples are up to five times more likely to end up getting divorced than others.

    According to the study, the couples with the best chance are those where a woman with a superior education marries a man who is five or more years older than herself.

    Neither should be a divorcee.

    By comparison, a marriage where a woman partners an equally poorly educated male divorcee who is five or more years her junior is up to five times more likely to fail.

    The study is good news for David Cameron, 43, and wife Samantha, 38. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama, 48, and wife Michelle, 45, may have only a three-year difference in age but have been married for 17 years.

    But the study may not be welcomed by Michael Douglas, 65, and his 40-year-old wife Catherine Zeta-Jones – the research suggests a marriage is more likely to fail if only one partner has been previously divorced, and Douglas was married once before.

    Academics including Dr Emmanuel Fragnière of the University of Bath studied interviews with 1,534 Swiss couples who were either married or in a serious relationship. Five years later they followed up 1,074 of the couples to see which had separated.

    Using the data collected about their age, education, nationality and previous relationships, they found the factors that many of those who broke up had in common.

    Psychologists then analysed the importance of each factor to build up profiles of an ideal marriage and a nightmare couple. With age, they found that if the wife is five or more years older than her husband, they are more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.

    With education, couples in which neither partner has studied much are the most likely to break up. Those where both are well educated are half as likely to divorce.

    對于很多人來說，成功的婚姻可以歸因于吸引力、奉獻、耐心以及真愛。而日前的一組統計學家卻有不同看法。

    這些研究人員基于夫妻雙方的年齡、受教育程度和婚史推出了一套可測算夫妻關系和諧度的、完全不浪漫的公式。

    專家稱，根據他們的這一理論可推算出，一些夫妻的離婚幾率可比其他人高五倍。

    根據該研究，如果妻子的受教育程度高于丈夫，且丈夫比妻子大五歲或者更多，那么應該是最理想的搭配。

    此外，兩人都沒有婚史。

    相比之下，如果女方和男方的受教育程度都較低，男方曾離異，且比女方小五歲或以上，那么他們離婚的幾率會增加五倍。

    這對于（英國保守黨領袖）43歲的戴維？卡梅倫和他的妻子、38歲的薩曼莎來說應該是個好消息。此外，美國總統巴拉克？奧巴馬（48歲）和妻子米歇爾（45歲）盡管只差三歲，但他們的婚姻已維持了17年。

    但邁克爾？道格拉斯（65歲）和妻子凱瑟琳？澤塔-瓊斯（40歲）可能不會喜歡這套公式。研究表明，如果夫妻中只有一方曾離異，那么兩人離婚的幾率較大，而道格拉斯之前就有過一次婚史。

    包括巴斯大學的伊曼紐爾？弗拉尼耶博士在內的研究人員們對1534對瑞士情侶進行了調查，這些受訪者或者已結婚，或者正在戀愛。五年之后，研究人員又回訪了其中的1074對，看哪些人已經分手。

    研究人員通過分析所收集的受訪者的年齡、受教育程度、國籍和婚史資料，發現了那些分手的人之間存在的一些共同點。

    之后，心理學家對每個因素的重要性進行了分析，然后構造出理想夫妻和"噩夢"夫妻的大致模式。研究人員發現，從年齡來看，如果妻子比丈夫大五歲或更多，他們離婚的幾率要比同齡夫妻大三倍。

    從受教育程度看，受教育水平都很低的夫妻最容易離婚。而雙方都接受過良好教育的夫妻離婚幾率會減半。