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Newsweek claims that the recent marriage study provides "another reason to stay married." It doesn't. The reporters also neglect to mention something else: If you take all of the women who ever got married, then set aside those who got divorced or widowed, and even set aside those who remarried (because who knows what their previous dissolved marriages might have done to them), then even that very selected group of married women who are left have no better health than the women who stayed single the whole time. Read More
Statistics aside
Bella, I am always impressed with your critiques of the statistics involved in these studies and the mainstream media interpretations.
But what are the reasons these authors and/or the reporters are suggesting for their claimed effects? There's the old claim that men can't figure out how to make a doctor's appointment or eat healthy without nagging, but I don't really buy that men are that incompetent (or that nagging is good for your health). I can't really see how something like marriage is related to physical health- yet the correlation is studied so often. Personally, I can't see how my own physical health would change just by undergoing a ceremony (btw, do they ever study long term couples who aren't married in these things?).
I do know that in my last relationship my health got WORSE because I got lazy about going to the gym and I had someone else making half of my eating decisions, the best of which I make on my own. But that didn't have many health implications other than I had to get back into better shape. How could marriage possibly prevent or contribute to disease?
I agree, what's the mechanism of causation?
Usually with these studies, there's little attempt to discover the cause of the alledged superiority of marriage. Sometimes the authors will include some speculation, but they never bother to investigate further.
I suspect the reason is that they don't want to look for a mechanism is that it might lead to solutions other than marriage. For example, if it was found that singles have poor health because of loneliness, then finding social outlets for singles could cure that. Similarly, if single men aren't healthy because they forget to go to the doctor, then maybe the doctor's receptionist could send reminders.
But those pragmatic solutions won't fly, because the people pushing marriage aren't really interested in the health and well-being of the single, divorced, separated and widowed; they're interested in pushing marriage.
Psychological Effects of Healthy Relationships
I think what they want to imply is that having a love relationship with a so-called primary partner has such positive mental health effects that it also influences our physical well-being. Research I've read indicates that strong relationships with other people DO improve health, but the pro-marriage crowd gets it wrong with their insistence that ONLY a marital relationship can have such beneficial effects.
Well you would think that
Well you would think that this is the logic they are trying to present, but then they talk about how people like the Gosslins and Sanfords would be healthier if they stayed married. These people obviously do not have great "love relationships" if they are getting divorced, cheating, etc. Therefore, this logic goes right out the window. They are implying that it's NOT a healthy love relationship that improves health, but just the state of being legally married.
It's simple
> I can't really see how something like marriage is related
> to physical health- yet the correlation is studied so often.
Marriage often though not always involves reproduction, and you have to have decent physical health in order to be reproductively viable. Thus it's plausible that the more healthy are more likely to marry to begin with. Yes, this is inverting the horse/cart order that the "studies" we're talking about seem to concern themselves with.
One entirely separate study years ago of "why men marry" showed that 90% of men picked their wife because they thought she was attractive. (One supposes that maybe almost all of the remaining 10% were lying...) There's an entire genre of ev-psych research which has showed female attractiveness to basically be about reproductive fitness. Women are fond of charging males with being "shallow" in this regard, but another way of looking at it is that it's very computationally efficient for men to be able to access a woman's reproductive fitness with a mere glance.
For example, the waist-to-hip ratio has been shown to be a reliable indicator of the levels of sex hormones, reproductive potential, and also the risk of major diseases and premature mortality. Studies have demonstrated that a high waist-to-hip ratio (which is not a Good Thing for attractiveness) can predict menstrual irregularity, diabetes, hypertension, heart attack, stroke, gallbladder disease, and cancer of the ovaries and breast; these health issues are almost all associated with abdominal fat and thus a high waist measurement.
One would hardly need to point out that any mutant males who found post-menopausal women a turn-on would not likely be anybody's ancestors.
Of course correlations between health and marriage would be expected to currently be quite weak since reproduction is no longer strongly confined to occurring only within marriage as it was a couple of generations ago.
sorry, but I'm not sold on
sorry, but I'm not sold on that explanation at all. Go outside and look at all the married people around you. Is there anything especially attractive about them? Is there anything particularly sexy about them? No. Think about it, aren't some of the LEAST attractive people you have ever met married? Yes. I know people who I'm pretty sure are asexual, and they are married. I know short people who married, fat people who are married, ugly people who are married, people who are overly thin who are married, people who are overall unhealthy and LOOK as such who are married.
Furthermore, what you are describing about the high waist to hip ratio and irregular periods or whatever seems to me to pretty much suggest PCOS, which an estimated 10% of all women have. And guess what, enormous numbers of those 10% are married- that's why fertility treatments are such a lucrative industry. People who can't easily have babies get married and try to have them anyway, in the millions.
I think your whole argument trying to connect these marriage/health studies to ev bio is a huge stretch. I definitely do not think that people who are healthier already are more likely to get married. If that were the case, people would get married at 20 years old. These studies are obviously assuming some social factor, not an evolutionary one. In fact, if you start trying to connect the institution of marriage to evolution, your whole argument goes out the window. If you rely on findings in evolutionary biology, there is no case for marriage and having multiple children with the same partner. Marriage and biology have nothing to do with each other. Marriage and economics, marriage and psychology, marriage and sociology, sure.
Does anyone who uses these
Does anyone who uses these 'studies' care about what people who happen to have never been married [like myself] think about the reason this kind of so-called research occurs in the first place.
Also, does anyone care that money used to fund this 'research' could instead go towards finding CURES for the ailments that all [married or single] suffer through?!
Sometimes I think they
Sometimes I think they *don't* care. Depressing, isn't it? That's why we just have to keep talking about it, and educate ourselves so that if the topic comes up at a cocktail party (um, because I go to soooo many of those. . . .yeah. . .), we can talk (almost) as articulately as Bella about why these studies are flawed and hurtful.
Also, I liked Bella's point that the studies (at least the authors' and journalists' interpretation of them) are IRRESPONSIBLE because they encourage people to stay in destructive and unhealthy relationships.
CC
"Also, I liked Bella's point
"Also, I liked Bella's point that the studies (at least the authors' and journalists' interpretation of them) are IRRESPONSIBLE because they encourage people to stay in destructive and unhealthy relationships."
Exactly. Even if people *were* more likely to be healthier if married, it's due to some sort of behavior associated with marriage (see my question above) not the actual marriage itself. But the studies seem to imply that it's just the act/state of being married that somehow magically improves health, therefore, ALL legal marriage, no matter what the state, would make you healthier!
Unintentional Testament to the Benefits of Singleness
Thank you for your consistent efforts to shed light on the media's exaggeration/falsification of research results!
One thing I find interesting about this study is that there were no differences between the single and the currently married on the measure of chronic health conditions. Presumably, there were differences on self-reported health and depression, then. That interests me because it suggests that actual health (as measured by chronic illness) isn't affected by marriage even if we think it is (as measured by self-report and depression). How many of those singles, I wonder, reported poorer health and depressive symptoms because society tells them they shouldn't be as happy and healthy as married people? Just a thought.
Another thing that amazes me is that singles, especially women, are able to score so well on measures of health considering that they're much more likely than marrieds to be without insurance. Unless these studies screen out anyone who isn't insured, that right there could contribute quite a lot to the health scores of the single population. The fact that singles are still so healthy is, to me, a testament to the benefits of the single lifestyle.
I suspect that reporters skip from abstract to discussion because they don't know how to interpret studies. Though we're all taught the basics of the scientific method in grade school, I would guess that most people who haven't taken collegiate stats or research courses don't really understand how to identify a confound or bias. I know I didn't really have a solid grasp of it till I'd taken Stats or Experimental I. Still, if they can't interpret the data themselves, they need to ask experts (on both sides, not just Waite) to explain it to them. Anything else is irresponsible.
I agree with Singletude
You make a great point. In Bella's book she talks about the fact that singles are dealt a lame hand to begin with, then expected to measure up to married people, who enjoy so many benefits that they would be entirely justified in doing better in health studies.
I was also wondering, as other comments asked above, why all the frenzied anxiety about making marriage look good? What's it to you if I decide never to marry? How does that effect any other married person's life? Why are they out to prove that singles don't live as well as marrieds? Some reasons have been hinted at, but they're bogus. I just don't get it.
I think a lot of people see society as fragile
And see people who deviate from the norm as threatening society and the status quo. And if you've benefitted by the status quo, you're sure not going to want to see it changed.
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