“Gentlemen prefer blondes” was the title to a best selling book of a few decades ago (the follow up wwas “blondes prefer gentlemen” which I thought was a nice twist) and now we seem to be seeing a confirmation of this.

Gentlemen do indeed prefer blondes when it’s a girlfriend or mistress they’re looking for, but they seem to prefer brunettes when it’s a wife they’re after.

A new survey has found that men think blondes are better as girlfriends, but brunettes are the best for settling down with.

Almost one in five say blondes are sexier than other girls, with just under half saying they had more outgoing personalities.

When it comes to marriage, however, more than half said they would rather wed a dark-haired woman because they were more dependable and sensible.

OK, so the survey was carried out by a hairdresser but that doesn’t mean that the results are entirely ridiculous. Well, OK, the results are ridiculous, but more interesting is trying to come up with some explanation.

Could it be something genetic? In either men or women?

I don’t really think so, there’s not a lot of connection between natural hair color and personality, nor dependability. The survey also found that men think dark haired women are better cooks, which is simply bizarre.

No, I think this differentiation is in fact entirely societal. And it’s not to do with natural hair colour, either.

It’s the fact that a large number of women who are blonde are in fact bottle blondes. And a very small number of dark haired women are in fact bottle brunettes.

Now it is true that dark haired women do dye their hair, but that’s much more about maintenance of a color than creation of one. The vast majority of hair dying to change the natural colour (OK, so I’m guessing a bit but I’d stand by it) is to blonde, not from blonde.

So, what men are saying is that for a girlfriend, for the rumpy pumpy say, they’re attracted to women who glamourise themselves, who go to the trouble of dying their hair. Yet when it comes to settling down they seem to prefer someone who hasn’t gone to such lengths…perhaps they used the time saved to improve their cooking?

Well, at least, that’s my explanation.