Here's exciting news from the frontiers of science -- men and women are different.

Now, you might have suspected a difference did exist, but here's confirmation at last. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Robert Sabat, moderator of the Best of the Juggle column, closes in on the scoop of the century with the headline Men Like Earning More Than Wives.

Referencing the work of Cornell Professor Pamela Tolbert, the co-author of the snappily-titled "The Impact of Relative Earnings Among Dual-Earner Couples on Career Satisfaction and Family Satisfaction," we learn "men who earn a lot more than their wives report significantly higher career satisfaction than men who earn about the same as their spouses."

How feeble! How pathetic! How true!

Men know women are better in almost every respect, and if society is tilted towards rewarding the weaker sex -- men -- than we have no choice but to cling to our one area of superiority: paychecks.

"Husbands feel concerned when wives make more than them," Tolbert explains. "We still have those kinds of models in our head."

Despite the fact that the models most men have in their heads can be found in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, it is difficult to deny the satisfaction a man feels on those rare occasions when he can lord it over his mate. Of course, not all men are thoughtless louts. Many men temper their superiority in the salary department by giving their women an extra dollar or two now and then to indulge in whatever foolishness they have in their silly, little, underpaid heads, like buying shiny baubles at Tiffany's.

Sound slightly sexist? Not at all. According to the article, women who earn more than their men folk also report significantly higher levels of career satisfaction, proving that what is good for the goose is also good for gander. (And if someone knows what the heck a gander is, please e-mail me immediately. The only goose I know is my own, and when my wife reads this column, it is cooked.)

Tolbert's research was conducted between 1999 and 2002, and I suspect that the disastrous state of the economy in 2009 has produced significant changes in "the model."

Today, no one much cares who brings home the bacon. It could be the man, the woman, or the family dog. Lording it over your spouse because you get an extra 25 cents on your unemployment check fails to produce those same warm feelings of superiority. Continued...