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In a fascinating speech before the Population Association of America in 1995, demographer Linda Waite reported on a wide range of studies showing that married men typically live longer and enjoy significantly better health than unmarried men.
In fact, Waite says that, on average, a man's lifespan is shortened more by being unmarried than by being poor, by being overweight or by having heart disease.
Divorced men are particularly likely to experience health problems. When compared to married men, divorced males are twice as likely to die prematurely from hypertension, four times as likely to die prematurely from throat cancer and seven times as likely to die prematurely from pneumonia.
Divorced men also have significantly higher rates of depression, substance abuse, auto accidents and suicide. "Being divorced and a non-smoker is only slightly less dangerous than smoking a pack or more a day and staying married," observes David Larson of the (US) National Institute for Healthcare Research.
Why does marriage offer men such extraordinary health benefits? Waite says marriage gives men a sense of obligation to others, which discourages them from high-risk behaviours (like driving too fast and drinking too much) and encourages them to make and save more money (which can be used to buy better health care and safer surroundings, among other things).
In addition, marriage offers individuals a network of help and support, which can be particularly beneficial in dealing with stress and in recovering from illnesses and accidents. But here's the clincher. Waite says, "Marriage provides individuals--especially men--with someone who monitors their health and health-related behaviours and who encourages self-regulation--someone who nags them."
Yikes. Waite's suggestion that a wife's nagging does a man good is every husband's worst nightmare. While most men probably would admit that it is beneficial to have a wife who gently encourages them to lay off the red meat or to ease up on the accelerator, the last thing most men want is an Open Season declared for the constant hounding normally associated with the term "nagging". (That noise you hear is the sound of men climbing onto the corner of their roofs--the place King Solomon said he'd rather live "than share a house with a quarrelsome wife") (Proverbs 21:9).
I doubt Waite really wants women to pester their husbands mercilessly. Or for men to start climbing onto their roofs.
Waite's chief aim is not to promote nagging but to heighten public awareness that research shows married people live longer and enjoy better health. She thinks such findings need the same sort of public attention as has been given research on the health consequences of behaviours such as cigarette smoking and exercise--especially since it is increasingly clear that marriage affects health more than health affects marriage.
For example, a recent research review by Robert Coombs of the University of California at Los Angeles shows that the link between marriage and long life is due more to the fact that marriage fosters good health than to the fact that healthy people are more likely to get and stay married. And Waite says there is some evidence that men who would otherwise be at higher risk for premature death are actually more likely than other men to marry and remain married.
As with all reasearch of this kind, it is important to recognize that these findings reflect averages. They in no way suggest that every unmarried person is doomed to bad health or that getting married gives one immunity from the negative consequences of, say, eating pork rinds. But the research does lend credence to Solomon's observation that "Two are better than one, because. . . . if one falls down, his friend can help him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9).
And the research goes further, to show that all twosomes are not alike, that married couples fare significantly better than couples living together outside of marriage.
Indeed, Waite says married men and women each report significantly higher physical and emotional satisfaction with their sex lives than either single or cohabiting men and women. Washington State University researcher Jan Stets reports that women in cohabiting unions are more than twice as likely to be the victims of domestic violence than married women. And data from the National Institute of Mental Health show that cohabiting women have rates of depression that are more than three times higher than married women and more than twice those of other never-married women.
Clearly, cohabition does not offer the same benefits that marriage provides, in large part because the absence of a permanent commitment hinders the developement of certain qualities--such as self-sacrifice, empathy and trust--that are critical to the success of an intimate union.
All things considered, then, stable marriage is good for one's health. That's not just my opinion--it's a nagging truth.
William R. Mattox, Jr., is vice-president for policy at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
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