Modern wives call the shots

Modern wives love having sex on a Saturday afternoon and are most likely to call the shots in bed.

They are not interested in obeying their husbands and prefer to put themselves first, a new book claims.

Author Mandi Norwood, a former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, interviewed dozens of British and American women for her research.

She found that, unlike their mothers, 21st-century wives were more likely to keep their maiden name, have a career and make sure household chores were shared. They were also more adventurous and liked putting 'I before we'.

'It's their youth-fashioned not oldfashioned appearance, conduct and attitude which define this generation of married women,' Ms Norwood said.

Despite gloomy divorce statistics and a stream of articles lauding the benefits of cohabitation, many single women still yearned to get married, she added, saying: 'Being single is so over. Everybody is getting married.'

In 1970, the average age at which a woman first married was 20. Now it is 25, so a bride is more likely to know what she likes in bed by the time she walks down the aisle. However, unlike singletons, married women are reluctant to discuss sex with friends.

Ms Norwood said: 'They think "This is the man I've pledged to be with for the rest of my life". It's not a joke.'

Her book - Sex And The Married Girl: From Clicking To Climaxing - will be published next month. It is a sequel to the 1960s must-have Sex And The Single Girl, by Cosmopolitan founder Helen Gurly Brown.