Can men be exempted from being charged with atypical relationship behavior? It appears they can, according to a study conducted by scientists at Karolinska Institute in Sweden led by Hasse Walum, postgraduate student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Walum and his colleagues concluded that relationship problems are highly influenced by a genetic variation in men.

“There are, of course, many reasons why a person might have relationship problems, but this is the first time that a specific gene variant has been associated with how men bond to their partners,” Walum explained.

In his study, Walum used data from The Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden, which included 550 twins and their partners or spouses. The team of scientists found that men who carry one or two copies of a variant of the allele 334 gene may have a different relationship behavior compared to men who lack this particular gene variant.

Furthermore, although the gene variant may be partly responsible for relationship problems, it doesn’t always mean that men who carry it will have a certain type of behavior in a relationship.

Statistically speaking, men with two copies of allele 334 were more likely to go through a marital or relational crisis than those who lacked the gene variant. Furthermore, it appears that the gene variant is not only felt by men, but also by their partners: women married to or in relationship with men who carried one or two copies of allele 334 were less satisfied with their relationship.

Walum explained that the same gene has been previously found to be linked with monogamous behavior in male voles. “The fact that the corresponding gene has proved important for similar behavior in voles makes our findings even more interesting, and suggests that the thoroughly studied brain mechanisms that we know give rise to strong bonds between individual voles can also be relevant to humans.”

The study will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.