Health Benefits of Marriage

Various people have expressed various opinions on marriage. However the very fact that the institution continues to stand the test of time is good news in a world where every social alignment and every personal relationship is increasingly under pressure. And if you are still not convinced about the institutional and emotional benefits of marriage, consider the fact that it may be better for your health too, especially when compared to living as a single.

Men have an edge

A major survey of 127,545 American adults quoted in a Harvard journal 1 found that married men are healthier than men who were never married or whose marriages ended in divorce or widowhood. Men who have marital partners also live longer than men without spouses and in fact the longer a man stays married, the greater his survival advantage over his unmarried peers.

Less prone to depression

An important reason for this could be that married people are less likely to suffer from the debilitating effects of loneliness which in turn leads to depression and early death. People living with spouses are less likely to be lonely and more engaged in social as well as family relationships. Also Married people tend to have lower rates of all types of mental illnesses and suicide2 ; apart from the emotional intimacy provided in marriage, this is because depression and other emotional ills are less likely to go undiagnosed if there is someone at home who's mindful of negative changes in moods and psychological health. The Times article offers a detailed description of the way stress and the hormones it releases like cortisol have a negative impact on health. But while married men may have an extra edge over married women in matters like cardiovascular health, benefits in mental health are available to both married men and women. In an experiment, mentioned in The Times article,  married women underwent brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI). During the scans, the women were told they were going to receive a painful electric shock. The researchers then watched to see how the subjects' brains responded to the threat and found that among happily married women, hypothalamus activity declined sharply if husbands held their wives' hands during the experiment. Women who reported being less satisfied with their marriage--and women whose hands were held by strangers--got little such relief. This suggests that happily married women are better able to cope with stress and pain than those who are single or unhappy in their relationship.

However critics questions whether the institution of marriage is specifically linked to better health, or is it simply a question of living with another person which is possible in a live-in or other committed relationships too? Although studies vary, the answer seems to be a little of both. People living with unmarried partners tend to fare better than those living alone, but men or women living with their spouses have the best health of all.

A happier heart

Even more definite benefits come from the association of marriage and cardiovascular health. Japanese scientists reported that never-married men were three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than married men. And a report from the Framingham Offspring Study3 also suggests that marriage is truly heartwarming. Scientists evaluated 3,682 adults over a 10-year period. Even after taking major cardiovascular risk factors such as age, body fat, smoking, blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol into account, married men had a 46% lower rate of death than unmarried men. Coronary artery disease and hypertension are among the most important causes of heart failure, a chronic disabling condition that results when the weakened heart muscle is unable to pump all the blood that the body's tissues need. But even after this serious problem has developed, a supportive marriage is associated with improved survival.

Better quality of life

The clearly established links between stress, depression, social isolation, and heart disease may make it natural to conclude that a good marriage might protect the heart but cancer is a different matter. While being married does not significantly reduce chances of developing a cancer, the quality of life for a cancer patient is certainly better if he is married. For example, a study4 of 27,779 cancer cases mentioned in the Harvard report found that unmarried individuals were more likely to have advanced disease at the time of diagnosis than married persons. Also unmarried patients were less likely to receive treatment than married patients. And even for those who received cancer therapy, marriage was linked to improved survival. Patients with supportive marriages were found to have better survival rates when cancer was diagnosed as compared to patients who are separated at the time of diagnosis. In another study3 scientists from the University of Miami investigated 143,063 men with prostate cancer. Over a 17-year period, married men survived far longer – with a median 69 months - than separated and widowed patients – who had a median of 38 months. Men who had never married had an intermediate survival rate of 49 months. The findings were further affirmed by researchers from Harvard and UCLA after they identified similar survival benefits for married patients with bladder cancer.

Healthier lifestyle

According to a 2004 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), married people are less likely to smoke or drink heavily than people who are single, divorced or widowed. These sorts of lifestyle changes are known to lower rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory diseases which is another reason why married people may live longer or enjoy a better quality of life.

Then again common sense suggests that married partners may live longer simply because their spouses nag them to visit their doctors in case of a troubling symptom. This the crux of a 2010 article in The Daily Mail 5 according to which social scientists believe that married men were 6 per cent more likely to go to the doctor than single men who had no one to tell them they needed a check-up. The results were gleaned from a study, presented at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference at the University of Surrey. The study also found women were 34 per cent more likely to keep fit through regular exercise in a relationship, and men were 20 per cent more likely to go out for a run once a week if they were married.

Finally though whether or not a marriage keeps you healthy depends on the quality of relationship you have with your spouse. Stress, depression and unhealthy lifestyle are prime causes of ill-health. If these are present in your life – for instance in an unhappy marriage – you are still likely to suffer from ill-health. What marriage does is to offer higher chances of healthy living and emotional support which could go a long way in keeping you and your significant half fitter than your single friends.

References:

1. Harvard Men's Health Watch - July 2010  - Marriage and men's health
    
2. Time Magazine - Marry Me
    
3. PubMed.gov - Marital status, marital strain, and risk of coronary heart disease or total mortality: the Framingham Offspring Study.
    
4. Harvard Men's Health Watch - Marriage and men's health
    
5. Mail Online - Married men live longer 'as wives nag them to visit their GP