Monday, September 18, 2006

Marriage matters


“Marriage is Best for Bringing up Children.” That was the headline on a July 9 article in the London Telegraph. It quoted a survey of 15,000 families carried out for a social justice policy review group headed by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said the report.
The study found that “for unmarried couples – including those cohabiting and ‘closely involved’ – family breakdown is five times more common than among married couples.”
The report pointed out the high correlation between family breakdown and higher crime rates, unemployment and other social pathologies. “Evidence from the study suggests that the low breakdown rates among married couples can be explained by a range of factors including commitment, fathers playing a greater role in their children’s upbringing, and better communication,” it said.
Gallagher’s newsletter quoted a Sept. 6 Reuters article that said, “Divorce apparently harms the cardiovascular health of women, but men’s hearts appear to escape a split-up unscathed, a new study shows.”
Why does divorce hurt women more than men? Probably because women are far more likely to be plunged into economic hardship by divorce than men. That stress takes its toll, said Dr. Zhenmei Zhang of Bowling Green State University in Ohio and Dr. Mark Hayward at the University of Texas at Austin.
“The health effects of marriage are well established,” said the report. “People who have ever been married live longer than their never-married counterparts, and are less likely to suffer from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.”

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