Resumo de Get Married- Live Longer

appeared to reduce the degree of depression. Men and especially women whose marriages ended over the five-year period experienced high levels of depression compared with those who stayed married. Single men as a group were depressed at the outset of the study and became more depressed if they stayed single.
Compelling as he found these data, Dr. Doherty, the University of Minnesota professor, noted that they represent population-based averages. They do not mean that everyone is better off married than single, or that people are bound to be happy and healthy if they marry the wrong person.
Emotional health also hinges on satisfaction with sex, and in this realm marriage serves both men and women, but delivers a special bonus to women. First of all, Dr. Waite said, married people have sex twice as often as single people. Unmarried couples who live together also have an active sex lives but, like unmarried people, get less emotional satisfaction from it than married people, the studies found.
For married men, satisfaction hinges on sexual frequency, fidelity and emotional commitment to the relationship. For women, these elements are equally important, but just the fact of being married added an extra kick to their sexual satisfaction. Men make an investment in pleasing their partner because of their ongoing relationship,Dr. Waite said. People who are committed to a partner get more than sex out of sex.
Married people also have more money. From her own analysis of a National Institute of Aging survey of 12,000 people 51 to 61 years of age, Dr. Waite found that married people have more than twice as much money, on average, as unmarried people. Married couples not only save more while enjoying some economies of scale, but married men also earn up to 26 percent more than single men.
Similarly, married women earn more than unmarried women, but only if they have no children. When they have children, they trade some time earning for time with their children,Dr. Waite said. If the women continue to work, she added, they have difficulty getting childcare, and experience stress trying to balance two sets of demands.
Married women are not only happier and wealthier than single women, Dr. Waite found, they are also safer. Moderate domestic violence (defined as hitting, shoving or throwing things at a partner) occurred half as often with married couples and cohabiting couples engaged to marry than it did with cohabiting couples not planning to marry.
All told, marriage seems to bring increased life, satisfaction and happiness.

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