There is a brand new recipe for a healthy life. Countering conventional wisdom that marriage is bad for women but good for men, a University of Chicago researcher says she has found that marriage brings considerable benefits to both women and men. It lengthens life, substantially boosts physical and emotional health and raises income over that of single or divorced people or those who live together, she says. The researcher, Dr. Linda J. Waite, a professor of sociology, presented her findings in July at the second annual Smart Marriages Conference in Washington. People need to know the facts so they can make good decisions.
Marriage is good for everyone.
But I'm battling a deeply entrenched, if dangerous and false, belief. But married women, she said, score higher on these negative traits than single women. Although the findings were never replicated and were disputed even then, they entered the lore of the field and of popular culture. They matched the then-evolving belief that marriage is an oppressive institution for women. Since the 1970's, researchers have come up with better measures of emotional health, and on these, married women and men generally score very well.