Is marriage good for your health?

Came across this article and thought I'd share.... Let me know your thoughts

In 1858, a British epidemiologist named William Farr set out to study what he called the “conjugal condition” of the people of France. He divided the adult population into three distinct categories: the “married,” consisting of husbands and wives; the “celibate,” defined as the bachelors and spinsters who had never married; and finally the “widowed,” those who had experienced the death of a spouse. Using birth, death and marriage records, Farr analyzed the relative mortality rates of the three groups at various ages. The work, a groundbreaking study that helped establish the field of medical statistics, showed that the unmarried died from disease “in undue proportion” to their married counterparts. And the widowed, Farr found, fared worst of all.

Farr’s was among the first scholarly works to suggest that there is a health advantage to marriage and to identify marital loss as a significant risk factor for poor health. Married people, the data seemed to show, lived longer, healthier lives. “Marriage is a healthy estate,” Farr concluded. “The single individual is more likely to be wrecked on his voyage than the lives joined together in matrimony.”

While Farr’s own study is no longer relevant to the social realities of today’s world — his three categories exclude couples living together, gay couples and the divorced, for instance — his overarching finding about the health benefits of marriage seems to have stood the test of time. Critics, of course, have rightly cautioned about the risk of conflating correlation with causation. (Better health among the married sometimes simply reflects the fact that healthy people are more likely to get married in the first place.) But in the 150 years since Farr’s work, scientists have continued to document the “marriage advantage”: the fact that married people, on average, appear to be healthier and live longer than unmarried people.

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Osaruchi

2 comments:

Niyi Charles August 31, 2010 at 8:56 PM  

It is an insightful article. It demostates the beauty and reward of great marriage.

Marriage is the closest one can get to heaven on earth and the nearest to hell on earth.

One should take time to get it right.

It is better to endure loneliness for a time and enjoy the laughter of a lifetime in a great marriage.

Thanks for sharing.

BelovedOsaruchi August 31, 2010 at 10:56 PM  

I definitely agree Uncle Niyi! It was very insightful and your second statement, yet profound.

By His grace and strength, more people will rely on His wisdom and take time to get it right.


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