Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo
Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo
Excerpts:
The power of marriage to transform allegedly forlorn single people into blissfully happy and healthy couples is not just the stuff of fairy tales. For more than 70 years, social scientists’ studies havesupposedly shown that marrying improves people’s wellness. Award-winning scholars and leading magazines have all proclaimed that marriage typically makes people healthier and happier.
The promise is seductive: Find and marry that one special someone and all your dreams will come true.
Recently, though, new and methodologically sophisticated studies have been published that suggest something startling: Maybe we are wrong about the benefits of marriage. People who marry, it seems, do not become healthier than when they were single, and may even become a shade less healthy.
They do not become lastingly happier, either.
…No matter how he looked at it, Tumin found marriage did nothing for men’s health. Among the women, only the oldest study participants in the most enduring marriages described their health as a bit better after they had married.
….We think that because married people have someone, they are protected from loneliness and single people are not. But that is another example of a misleading cultural narrative fixated on the perils of single life. It ignores the special pain of feeling lonely within a marriage. It fails to appreciate the deep fulfillment that solitude can offer, with its opportunities for creativity, reflection, relaxation, rejuvenation, spirituality and peace.
When we think of married people as having someone, that seems particularly important when one of them falls ill. This, too, is not always true. A study of women with breast cancer, most of whom were married, showed that support from their significant other did nothing to relieve their distress or speed their recovery.
Related:
(Link): Fewer Americans Think Marriage is Needed To Create Strong Families, New Poll Suggest
(Link): People Are Happier Spending Time With Their Friends Than With Their Families, Study Finds
(Link): I Married Young. I Was Widowed Young. I Never Want A Long-Term Partner Again by R. Woolf
(Link): Husband Dies of Covid-19 Only 48 Hours After Wife Gives Birth to Premature Baby
(Link): Getting Married Is Not an Accomplishment by N. Brooke’
(Link): Do You Need a Partner to Have a Happy Life? by D. LaBier
(Link): Statistics Show Single Adults Now Outnumber Married Adults in the United States
(Link): Single Adult Christian Pressured Into Marriage by Her Church – And Regrets It
(Link): Single Workers Aren’t There to Pick Up the Slack For Their Married Bosses and Colleagues
(Link): Article by J. Watts: The Scandal of Singleness
(Link): ‘Why Are You Single’ Lists That Do Not Pathologize Singles by Bella DePaulo
(Link): I’m 45, Single And Childless. No, There’s Nothing ‘Wrong’ With Me. by M Notkin
(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t
(Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family) (article)
(Link): Hey, Justice Kennedy: You don’t need to shame singles to uphold marriage by L. Bonos
(Link): More Anti-Singleness Bias From Southern Baptist Al Mohler – Despite the Bible Says It Is Better Not To Marry
(Link): Singles Advocate DePaulo Responds to Right Wing, Conservative Critics of Singlehood, Who Blame Singles For Breakdown of The Family (reminder: I myself am right wing)
(Link): Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church? by Gina Dalfonzo
(Link): Please Stop Shaming Me for Being Single by J. Vadnal
(Link): Newlywed Christian Husband Fatally Shot by Stray Bullet as He Slept With Wife
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