Is Marriage good for your health?

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. Farr found that married people weathered diseases far better than their unmarried counterparts but the worst affected were the widowed partners.

We have always known this intuitively but this new research reassures us that these observations were no “old wives tales”. 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. Contemporary studies, for instance, have shown that married people are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer or have heart attacks. A group of Swedish researchers has found that being married or cohabiting at midlife is associated with a lower risk for dementia.

But before many of you rush off to get married in order to live longer, pay need to new research that says that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit! The “drip, drip” of negativity can erode not only a marriage itself but also a couple’s physical health. A number of epidemiological studies suggest that unhappily married couples are at higher risk for heart attacks and cardiovascular disease than happily married couples. The women who were at highest risk for signs of heart disease were those whose marital battles lacked any signs of warmth, not even a stray term of endearment during a hostile discussion (“Honey, you’re driving me crazy!”) or a minor pat on the back or squeeze of the hand, all of which can signal affection in the midst of anger.

Last year, The Journal of Health and Social Behavior published a study tracking the marital history and health of nearly 9,000 men and women in their 50s and 60 which found that when the married people became single again — either by divorce or because of the death of a spouse — they suffered a decline in physical health from which they never fully recovered. These men and women had 20 percent more chronic health issues, like heart disease and diabetes, than those who were still married to their first husband or wife by middle age. The divorced and widowed also had aged less gracefully, reporting more problems going up and down stairs or walking longer distances.

Some research now says that single people who have never married have better health than those who married and then divorced. So just because you are married is not enough: you have to be happily married, your fights have to be full of warmth even when angry and you need to remain married - to enjoy a long and healthy life.