Does Love Benefit Men's Or Women's Health More?

By Carina Storrs, Health Magazine

Is marriage good for your health? In general, research suggests yes. Married people live longer, have better access to health care, enjoy a more satisfying sex life, experience less stress, live a healthier lifestyle, and have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, and depression compared to their single counterparts.

The list of health perks conferred by marriage is so long, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has made it a centerpiece of its two-year-old, $5 million national media campaign to promote wedded bliss.

But there's a catch -- men and women don't get the same or equal benefits from a legally sanctioned pairing. A man's sex life is likely to improve more than a woman's after getting married, for instance, while a woman's risk for depression tends to decrease more than her partner's when she's in a long-term relationship.

And in reality, getting hitched may not be strictly necessary. Women and men can reap some health benefits just by living together, or even by being in a stable long-term relationship, research suggests. Experts believe that same-sex couples, many of whom don't even have the option to get married, also score health gains, though almost all research so far has focused only on heterosexual relationships.

"I don't think it's necessarily a matter of the marriage license; it's a matter of the level of social support and mutual attachment," says John Gallacher, Ph.D., a researcher at the Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales, who recently published a paper on the health benefits of relationships in a BMJ journal.

We interviewed experts and sifted through the scientific research to determine which sex fares better in each of these eight categories.

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Life Span

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Marriage offers the ultimate health benefit: a longer life. Compared to their unwed counterparts, married people have longer average life spans and are drastically less likely to die at an early age. The link between marriage and longevity is much stronger among husbands than wives, however. A 2007 study that looked at death rates among European people over age 40 found that the rate was twice as high in unmarried men as in married men. The disparity in death rates was far more modest between unmarried and married women. Marriage is especially good at warding off fatal accidents, violence, and other semi-avoidable calamities, which are more common in younger people, says Michael Murphy, Ph.D., a professor of demography at the London School of Economics and the lead author of the 2007 study. But regardless of age, men's life spans appear to benefit more from marriage than women's. Advantage: Men. More from Health.com: 28 days to a healthier relationship 7 steps to instant calm 25 ways to cut 500 calories a day

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Marriage offers the ultimate health benefit: a longer life. Compared to their unwed counterparts, married people have longer average life spans and are drastically less likely to die at an early age.

The link between marriage and longevity is much stronger among husbands than wives, however. A 2007 study that looked at death rates among European people over age 40 found that the rate was twice as high in unmarried men as in married men. The disparity in death rates was far more modest between unmarried and married women.

Marriage is especially good at warding off fatal accidents, violence, and other semi-avoidable calamities, which are more common in younger people, says Michael Murphy, Ph.D., a professor of demography at the London School of Economics and the lead author of the 2007 study. But regardless of age, men's life spans appear to benefit more from marriage than women's.

Advantage: Men.

More from Health.com:
28 days to a healthier relationship
7 steps to instant calm
25 ways to cut 500 calories a day

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Comments

[alieninvader]

03:07 PM on 03/22/2011

In many ways I miss being single, but having someone to share both the good and bad with makes up for all the advantages.

[LindsayChrisler]

01:53 PM on 03/15/2011

The catch in this is interesting - that a man's sex life improves with marriage and a woman's sex life doesn't. It seems to be such a misconception that a woman's sex drive goes down after a certain age. I think what happens is that a woman gets bored with the same old sex (whereas a man is less likely to) but doesn't know how to have it any other way. You can have it how you want it! I think a woman's healthy sex drive can alleviate many of these factors like depression, weight gain, etc. There are tools to turn it back on!

[argon66]

02:57 AM on 03/09/2011

Someone once told me that married men live longer. I replied, "No' it just feels that way."

[singermuse]

10:02 AM on 03/04/2011

The bottom line seems to be that men benefit more from marriage than women. This might be due in part to the fact that we still live in a predominantly patriarchal society. If and when the majority of partnerships have the earmarks of consensus and equality, the benefits may level out.

[nootrope]

02:46 PM on 03/18/2011

If men benefit more from something that promotes health and wellness, that could mean that men are more oppressed to begin with.

[Dave Ryan MD]

02:19 AM on 03/04/2011

My wife used data related to this topic as a reason why not to marry me.

She still occasionally brings it up if she needs a justification. Silly thing. (It actually works sometimes.)

[Kellybelle22]

11:53 PM on 03/07/2011

She finds less and less reason for justification now, considering we're signed, sealed and fully delivered now. Occasionally you do make my BP go up, but that's in a sublimely good way.

[LINY01]

06:44 PM on 03/03/2011

I ran into a Sociologist in a book store about a year ago, I nver forgot it for some reason. On line we started talking and he said, it is fact that men who are married (or long term relationship) look younger than women who are married and women who are single look younger than than men that are single.

The point being that men benefit in relationships and it keeps them youtful and energetic while that same relationship usually has the opposite affect on the woman.

So sociology says and in some instances, I'm sure its true. Personally I believe that a healthy , commited and giving relationship, on both sides, enhances both of the involved lives.
I've also noticed that if an older/semi-elderly man loses his wife, that he remarries or has a girlfriend not in short order (say within a year or two) while the women of that age group tend to not remarry or even date.

[Blodo]

10:06 PM on 03/03/2011

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

I know that marriage and becoming a dad were the best things that could have possibly happened to me. I'm going to go and ask my wife if she thinks that same thing....as soon as she's done cleaning the kitchen and making tomorrow's school lunches for the kids.

[LINY01]

07:25 AM on 03/04/2011

LOL.

No. It doesn't but its all good. Men and women complain about each other all the time but overall, I think the balance of the different energies is a good thing; makes life interesting :-)

[Euranya]

04:59 PM on 03/03/2011

Gee, how did I know before I even read this article that men benefit more from marriage (or long-term relationships) than women? In 6 of the 9 indicators, men gained more of an advantage than women, which ain't no surprise to me. It will be very interesting to see research on same-sex married couples in a few years. Will studies show that the partner who is more the "husband" benefits more than the partner who is more like the "wife," regardless of gender? I wonder....

[alieninvader]

03:06 PM on 03/22/2011

Nice stereotyping.

[David4FreePress]

10:10 AM on 03/03/2011

I submit that love and long term relationships create energetic bonds between people that keep us healthier because they stimulate more life giving energy flow in each of the partners. Thus, both bodies function and heal themselves better. Anyone who knows love knows that feeling.
Another obvious example is the difference in mental development between children who are loved and those who are not.
Don't worry (for many reasons), I will not ask any psychologists to admit any of this. Just keep promoting meditation with your services.

[Carla Brown]

11:04 AM on 03/05/2011

Very well stated David4FreePress. Ability to love is fostered with deep meditation, because it the meditation is effortless as it is with Transcendental Meditation, one accesses pure bliss consciousness that has always been at the basis of thinking and acting. This effortless process eliminates stress and creates resilience of all kind, including resilience in marriage.