It is one thing to say you feel happier and self-confident. There, the data for women are murkier. In a report that will be published in the fall in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Dr. Ingrid Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania and her colleagues looked at a group of 3,000 young women over 10 years. They concluded that marriage improved the physical health of women who were not employed outside the home. But for working women, being married or single made no physical difference.
Similar studies are yet to be made in India.
We suspect that it's a matter of social support. You can get that support from your husband, or you can get it from being around other adults at work, but having it is what seems to be the key. For men, on the other hand, nuptials offer health benefits independent of employment status. Matrimony helps men even as it thickens their waistlines. Dr. Sobal and his colleagues at Cornell have calculated that men gain more weight as a result of being married than women do.