As the dust settles around last night’s election, the conventional wisdom is that Obama claimed the nation’s female vote. Some analysts, however, are pointing out that marital status appears to have been a more significant factor in the voting booth than gender.

According to polling data released by MSNBC, Obama carried the majority of the female vote over-all, at 55%. However, of the married women polled, 53% voted for Romney and 46% for Obama. In contrast, unmarried women favored Obama over Romney by a huge margin of 67% to 31%.

According to Brad Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, the data suggests that the President’s message resonates specifically with those women living the consequences of family breakdown.

“Single mothers are more likely to depend on a generous welfare state and therefore to identify with the expansive governmental vision of the Democratic Party,” Wilcox told LifeSiteNews. “By contrast, married mothers are less likely to depend on the welfare state and therefore to identify with the limited government philosophy of the Republican Party.”

He added: “Married women are more likely to have a pro-life worldview, and unmarried women are more likely to have a pro-choice worldview.”

Wilcox’s analysis is consistent with a candid strategy memo released by the liberal-leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosser research firm just before the 2008 election that landed Obama the Presidency.

“Unmarried women represent one of the most reliable Democratic cohorts in the electorate,” the memo read.