A U.S. study suggests that men tend to get more sex from their wives when not helping out with household chores, indicating that sticking to traditional gender roles seems to fire up the desire for more intimate moments between married couple.

"Where the male is doing the male tasks and the female is doing the female tasks, those are the couples who are having more sex," Professor Julia Brines of the University of Washington was quoted by The Toronto Star as saying.

Ms Brines co-authored the University of Washington-sponsored research that the American Sociological Review published on Wednesday.

"If the activity is coded as masculine or feminine and it expresses ideas about what makes the opposite sex interesting, attractive, alluring mysterious . . . that seems to be related to sexual activity and possibly sexual desire," she added.

The study was based on a nationwide survey in the United States that was conducted between 1992 and 1994. Researchers analysed the data that were collected from around 4,500 heterosexual couples.

While the information used were about two decades old, Ms Brines argued that the results were hardly outdated because not much have changed in the concept and division of household chores between men and women in the past 20 years.

The study pointed to a trend in which men not actively taking on chores like washing the dishes and some babysitting were clocking more blissful moment inside the bedroom.

Compared to the so-called egalitarian couples, in which household chores were split between the husband and the wife, "their sex lives are pretty lacklustre, they're not all that active," Ms Brines told the Canadian publication.

The research showed that men who remained in the traditional masculine realm are getting more sex while the more helpful husbands are getting their fair share but not to the 'exciting levels' seen in the former.

The research did not establish why traditional men appear more sexually attractive for the female participants of the survey, Ms Brines admitted. But she pointed to earlier studies that seem to point out "that mundane ... (and) gender-linked chores may be much more sexually charged than has been imagined."