Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

"WHO GETS MORE OUT OF MARRIAGE,MEN OR WOMEN?"

In a recent Newsweek article on longevity, I was happy to learn that as a married man, I derive greater benefit from marriage than my wife (albeit, she is married to me). The theory is that there are certain things that predict who among us can expect to live beyond the median age . This hypothetical median age presumably is determined by insurance underwriters, medical whizkids, and other experts, who are messing with my mortality. So, I get a little control over my life by being married. Something I can do something about, along with not smoking and reading the fine print on the potato chip package. As a marriage and family therapist, I just knew down in my subconscious, that being married was a whole lot better than being single or divorced. It is my profession, and, while I grant some people can't live together, basically I uphold the institution that entails a role for the marriage "fixers". 

My wife, however, who is not a therapist, does not have to take a professional stance, and was free to tell me what she thought of this theory. In her mind it has nothing to do with superiority of the male,( which I had hoped she would have to concede in the face of medical expertise). Her idea is that men get the advantage in the longevity calculation for marriage because women take care of them. Although this is obviously oversimplified, I had to think about this. ( I wouldn't want to lose the possible incremental advantage of having someone to wash my socks!). I am a transitional man, which means that I have left the traditional husband role behind , and have not yet, after 30 years of marriage, quite reached the nontraditional. I have to be careful here, lest my professional opinion get in the way of my homebase advantage. I don't want to make myself look worse than I am, but my personal position lags slightly behind my professional position.

 Now, as to whether marriage is better for husbands than wives, there is no need to be gender-divided on the issue. I maintain that , even in traditional marriages, the caretaking wives get something out of the role of looking after, picking up after, the husbands. With one couple that I knew, the husband was really a pretty capable guy, but he hardly knew how to make his own sandwich. He evolved into a more helpless husband than he really was, because his wife did a lot for him. Get him out of the house, and he could take charge of a major weekend construction project. ! What I observed was that both marital partners derived benefit from this in-the-house arrangement of roles. So there are plenty of these "traditional " men who are being waited on. Few men would admit to being this needy, so for the most part, they don't get to claim the advantage. Do the husbands gain, while the wives lose? I don’t think so. In the case of this couple, the wife seemed to thrive in her care-taking role. Maybe she thought, somewhere inside her, that she was adding years to his life. At the sametime, she was probably gaining some longevity for herself.

So maybe that's not the only explanation about marital benefits. Maybe men get more out of being married because they , in the rough world of work, get more stressed by the pressure to produce, compete, and be the major bread-winner. More stress more need to get stress relief. Therefore, being married, they get a place of sanctuary and comfort. Better to be married than not married. It's true that widows and widowers have poorer health and shorter lifespan. -

Men and women both gain overall health from marriage, however it may be weighted between the sexes. It's been known for some time that being in a stable relationship increases the immune system response of the individual. Dr. Keicolt-Glazer (a woman) at Ohio State University did some interesting research on divorced and separating spouses. She found that this group of people had fewer antibodies in their blood samples than their satisfactorily married counterparts. Everybody knows you, need lots of these immunity good guys to fight off illness and disease, So , overall, married people will live longer. I have always wanted to say it - Marriage is good for your health!

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