Social Studies: Americans Love Marriage. But Why?

Should they feel pressure to wed at all? As Bella DePaulo demonstrates in her (ponderously titled) 2006 book Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, the evidence that marriage makes us happy and healthy is quite weak. It's true that currently married people report slightly higher levels of happiness than single people. (In one big study that DePaulo cites, being married was associated with a 0.115-point increase in life satisfaction on a 0 to 10 scale.) But researchers can't reliably determine which causes which, the marriage or the happiness. Perhaps happy people are simply more prone to take a spouse because they are more sociable; perhaps unhappy people are more prone to stay home and listen to XM rather than date.

Of course, some people end up happier after marrying, but just as many end up sadder. And that's not even accounting for divorce: DePaulo shows that people who marry and then divorce are not as happy as those who stay single. Again, divorce may not cause unhappiness (rather, unhappy people may be more likely to split). But as another study that DePaulo cites concludes, "It is better to have no relationship than to be in a bad relationship."

DePaulo dismantles a few other claims of the pro-marriage lobby. For instance, it's true that currently married people report a better sex life than single people, but men who are divorced and living with a new girlfriend report even better sex. Also, according to a 2004 paper from the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, those marrying for the first time tend to report better health--but surprisingly, the period around divorce is also associated with improved health for those breaking up. In short, we feel better when we can pair off and then dissolve those pairings when they go awry. We feel worse, mentally and physically, when we can't find a mate or when we are trapped by a bad one. There's good evidence that it is freedom that makes us healthy and happy, not the bonds of marriage.