Marriage is good for health, physically and emotionally
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PROVO, UTAH
Marriage is important doctrinally to Latter-day Saints, but is it also good for physical and emotional health?
It is indeed, according to a research sociologist who spoke at BYU Feb. 11, in the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center Assembly Hall.
Linda J. Waite, professor of urban sociology at the University of Chicago, delivered the sixth annual lecture for the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Endowed Chair in Social Work and the Social Sciences. Her topic was "Marriage, Social Connections, and Health: Why Married People are Healthier."
"What I argue, and in my view the research evidence supports, is that marriage itself changes the choices that people make, which changes their behaviors, which changes the outcomes, which include, in particular, health outcomes," Dr. Waite said.
Marriage as a social institution is unique because it amounts to a public promise by two people to stay together for life, she said. "It doesn't always happen, but that's the expectation, and that's the promise."
The bad news, she said, is that marriage has been trending downward in the United States since the 1950s, down from 60-70 percent to about 55 percent. At the same time, she said, divorce rates are high, although they are stable and have even trended downward a bit since 1980.
Marriage fills different needs for men than for women, Dr. Waite said. It gives men a confidant, a purpose in life beyond themselves, improved health habits, social connections and financial stability, while for women, it provides social connections and time for attention to children, she explained.
She showed findings from national studies showing that both women and men who marry are apt to live longer than those who divorce or who never marry.
Dr. Waite showed studies of adults over time, measuring three kinds of health: physical, emotional and cognitive function (involving memory, perception and judgment). The studies showed that married people who live by themselves as a couple or with their own children have the optimum level of physical health. By contrast, married people who live with others (parents, grandchildren, relatives, friends, etc.) fare worse. And single people who live by themselves do worse for physical health, though single people who live in "complicated households" (mostly someone else's household) don't do much better.
The patterns are similar for emotional and cognitive function measures, she noted.
Dr. Waite showed studies indicating that being divorced, widowed or separated take their toll and leave a scar in terms of long-term health. However, unlike physical health, remarrying almost repairs the damage to emotional health, she said. The reason, she suggested, is that divorce is stressful and brings on poor health habits and conditions with regard to eating, sleeping, exercise, blood pressure, etc.
