And there is an explanation.
“Female rodents handle stress much better than males, which may hint at why women seem better able to survive social isolation than men, a pioneering University of Chicago research team reported Monday. The difference in the female lab rats’ responses may stem from the demands of motherhood, the researchers speculated. The idea is that mothers who can fend off stress and injury can better protect their young.”
From Peter Gorner (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 27, 2006).
In extrapolating from the U of C experiment we’re assuming, of course, that rodents have the same stressors as humans–all things being equal; I know they don’t have to pay taxes, worry about the laundry, mow the lawn, take out the trash, although they probably have to handle relationships, negotiate territory, concern themselves with finding adequate food and shelter, and grooming (listing my thumbnail sense of core human preoccupations), and from time to time perhaps contemplate contact with the divine.