If you want to know if your husband will cheat, you may want to take a close look at your father-in-law.

According to a new study cheating really does run in the family, at least as far as men are concerned.

The research confirming the old adage 'like father like son’ will come as no surprise to many a woman scorned...including the wives of womanising celebrities who had cheating fathers such as Tiger Woods and Ryan Giggs.

The study carried out by a team of Czech scientists concluded that, while men and women both had affairs, men were more likely to stray if their fathers had been unfaithful as they were growing up.

Presenting his research, Jan Havlicek told a conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, that daughters were not affected in the same way by their mothers' infidelity.

Mr Havlicek said as boys grew up by observing the world around them what was appropriate and what they could get away with.

Their father was an obvious example to follow for good or for bad.

The scientists based at Charles University in Prague, recruited 86 couples for the research.

They questioned the men and women individually and in confidence about their relationships, their attitudes towards sex, their family backgrounds and their infidelities.

Martie Hasleton, an evolutionary psychologist from the University of California in Los Angeles, said the fact that daughters did not appear to be as affected by parental infidelity in the same way as sons was explained by genetics.

She said good-looking fathers tend to have good-looking sons and those men tend to have more opportunity to cheat.

Attractive daughters of attractive mothers would behave differently, she said.

'Girls who are more attractive aren't necessarily going to be unfaithful - they're probably just going to get a higher-quality mate in the first place.'

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)