How Is Marriage Related to Health?

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What elements of a life course perspective are discussed in the article?

We can only surmise how marriage is related to health, but those who have been through a lot of problems and hassles as a result of bad marriages, literally know what marriage can bring to their health. More astounding facts and results of a study conducted by Hawkins and Booth (2005) came to the fore that could bring recommendations of further studies and bring to everybody’s attention the effects of marriage on people’s health.

There are good and bad effects. According to the newspaper article by Lerner (2002), a good marriage can bring these benefits:

Married people are generally less likely to have surgery and to die from all causes, including pneumonia and accidents.
Marriage is a cure for loneliness.
A good marriage can give a person a reason to stay alive.

Now, what about a bad marriage or a strained relationship, what does it bring? Lerner says unhappy relationships can bring:

Ill health and sickness; women are more vulnerable, and suffer the most; there’s a stronger association between marital discord and death among women.
Depression
Ulcers in the stomach and intestine
More gum disease and cavities
Severe sickness

The worst happens to people who don’t marry:

High blood pressure and heart rate
Changes in the endocrine and immune system, and
Early death

Emotions affect our health. That is Freudian. Although the studies and the facts enumerated in the article seem to be something new, the phenomenon is not new at all. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory points to the facts provided in the article: that our health is always affected by the way we think and feel, and interact with the people around us. “The tensions and arguments of marriage can often lead to depression.”

Those who are susceptible to high blood pressure surely will have their blood soaring up once they are in a strained and unhappy marriage.

The old adage says, “Take good care of your heart.”

That seems to be self-explanatory. Though it mostly refers to the kind of diet and the lifestyles that we have, this also points to “who or with whom” we deal with, or in company with. If your partner can give you headaches all day long and throughout your married life, then what is good in marriage? But a supportive partner can help a person stick to restrictive diets and exercise regimens.

Dr. Linda Waite says, “Marriage is sort of like a preserver or a seat belt.” This is an astounding statement, as Dr. Waite adds that marriage is like “eating a good diet, getting exercise and not smoking.”

The article further says, “…Marriage acts as a balm against loneliness and despair.” A married couple can share happiness by looking at each others’ health and well-being and giving company. Each partner does not feel lonely because they are always together; but loneliness comes when the relationship becomes strained due to misunderstandings, jealousy, infidelity, and other reasons common to couples.

Sickness can be the result of an individual’s lifestyle, on what you eat or intake into your body. Somebody’s lifestyle can be modified or altered with marriage. Married couples go for a disciplined lifestyle. That might be during the beginning of a happy marriage, or when things have worked well.

The elements of a life course perspective pointed to the events and exposures in marriage, on what couples do and result to whenever the relationship tends to become. While a bad relationship or an unhappy marriage can affect the health of people, it is said that this is better than not marrying at all. Relationships affect the course of a person’s life, and the latter life, as in the old adage, sickness may become worse.

On the other hand, the academic text of Hawkins and Booth (2005) is the result of a longitudinal study tracking unhappy marriages over a 12-year period, and then “assess marital happiness along many dimensions”. There are differences in the article and the academic text, which will be pointed in the conclusion of this essay analysis.

The book begins with a literature review of previous empirical studies of experts and then goes on to conduct a detailed longitudinal study of couples.

This is a good note for couples to stay happy by keeping track of their relationships. The study says: “Marital status has a strong effect on overall happiness as the continuously married variable is as strong a predictor as overall happiness measured in a previous wave” (Hawkins & Booth 451).

The result for continuously married and divorced/remarried individuals can be quite expected: they are significantly happier than unhappily married people (451).

Continuously married and divorced/unmarried individuals also have significantly higher degrees of life satisfaction than unhappily married individuals, while divorced/remarried people do not show a significant difference (454).

Self-esteem goes with marriage because the result says that “continuously married and divorced/unmarried individuals show significantly higher self-esteem than unhappily married people” (457).

The comparison of the unhappily married group, those who divorce, and the unmarried group say that the unmarried group shows greater self-esteem than unhappily married individuals, but the remarried group does not (457). This statement can be connected to the newspaper article stated above, which says that a bad marriage is better than not marrying at all. Hawkins and Booth’s study makes a contradiction. It says the members of the unmarried group have greater self-esteem, hence they can have good health.

What should be given more weight is that “remaining unhappily married is associated with a further reduction in people’s happiness and life satisfaction… and individuals from all marital status categories have better overall health than unhappily married people” (459).

Good marriage greatly affects people’s health and well-being, and being in a strained relationship and being unhappily married can bring bad effects on people’s health. The study says that bad marriage brings “lower happiness, life satisfaction, and self-esteem and is associated with poorer health” (458).

On the question of divorce, the study reveals that “divorced people sometimes experience greater well-being than unhappily married people”. But the question is whether they remarry, and if so how successful is the “new” marriage, i.e. is it a happy marriage, or might be a strained one again.

The study says: “divorced individuals who remarry have greater happiness than unhappily married people and divorced people who remain unmarried report more satisfaction with life, greater self-esteem, and better overall health. Remaining unhappily married rather than divorcing is never beneficial on average to the psychological well-being or overall health of the individuals” (459).

Waite and Gallagher (2000, cited in Hawkins & Booth 2005) suggest that there should be little alarm about the harmful effects of bad marriages on psychological and physical health since most people categorize their marriages as “very happy” (459).

In conclusion, people should avoid low-quality marriage because this “increases psychological distress and reduce overall health” (461).

The study concluded those people who are in unhappy marriages are in poor health situations. They suffer from low levels of overall happiness, life satisfaction and self-esteem, and symptoms of psychological distress which lead to health problems.

The academic study, however, is not sure or clear of the results on those divorced individuals who have remained unmarried, and those who remarried. It could be that it would really depend on the next situations that they would be. Some more studies have to be conducted on this field, as also recommended by the academic paper.

Some questions have to be asked further:

Do you think it would be better to remain unmarried and freed of the problems in marriage?

Should marrying be another problem? Or Should you remain in your present state of life? Marriage just complicates matters, is this not so? What are the lessons you’ve learned from your marriage that will increase your satisfaction in life, and improve your health? Is happiness always linked to a happy marriage?

Would you be satisfied in life by just remaining the way you are?

References

Hawkins, Daniel N., and Alan Booth. 2005. “Unhappily Ever After: Effects of Long-Term, Low-Quality Marriages on Well-Being.” Social Forces 84: 445-465.

Lerner, Sharon. 2002. “Good and Bad Marriage, Boon and Bane to Health.” The New York Times .

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How Is Marriage Related to Health?

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