In an article by the New York Times on April 10, 1995, Jennifer Steinhauer wrote the following:
Studies Find Big Benefits in Marriage
Single people may simply not know what's good for them, a recent group of studies suggests.
A body of demographic research presented at the conference of the Population Association of America here today indicates that marriage offers dramatic emotional, financial and even health benefits over the single life and cohabitation.
"Cohabitation has some but not all of the benefits of marriage," said Linda Waite, the association's president, in an address to members in which she argued that the married enjoy better health, more money and more satisfying sex.
An enhanced commitment that comes naturally with marriage, she said, increases all levels of the support that individuals bring to their relationship and lives. "Cohabitation does not generally imply a lifetime commitment to stay together," she said. "Cohabitants are more likely to assume that each partner is responsible for supporting him or herself."
Dr. Waite, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago whose research focuses on family structure, drew from various resources in her work, including the National Survey of Families and Households, a sampling of 13,000 adults, which was conducted in the late 1980's, with a followup in the early 1990's.
In terms of money, her research found that married couples were generally more financially well off than couples who simply lived together, because they were much more likely to pool money and invest in the future than were couples who merely cohabitated.
Increased material well being, she argued, trickles down into investments in better medical care, safer surroundings, better food and other things that raise the standard of living and reduce stress.
Dr. Waite also traced better health to marriage. Divorced men, her study showed, had twice the rate of alcohol abuse that married men had, and almost as many indulged in other "risk taking" behavior. Divorced women showed similar patterns, though at lower rates.
"Marriage may provide individuals with a sense of meaning in their lives," Dr. Waite said, "and a sense of obligation to others, inhibiting risky behaviors and encouraging healthy ones."
Her audience seemed most interested in the fact that married people report having more and better sex than single people have.
She cited the 1992 National Health and Social Life survey to support the notion that a readily available and willing married partner resulted in married men having sex twice as frequently as most of the single men surveyed, and the married men reported higher levels of satisfaction with their sex lives than either single or cohabitating men. She attributed this to the partners' investment in "skills" to please one specific person, and to an emotional investment in a relationship that should result in increasing the frequency and quality of sex.
Men appear to have the most to benefit from marriage, the study showed. They tend to make more money, perhaps because they have the incentive of another person. Dr. Waite said that divorced men had higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse and depression than single or married men or than single, married or divorced women.
"I think that happens because women tend to do the emotional work for the family," Dr. Waite said in an interview. "They have the friends and the skills and don't get it all from a marriage."
On the other hand, the studies she compiled indicated that women get fewer benefits from marriage. They often suffer a wage loss, particularly after children, and tend to be burdened with more housework. And the same research she used with men and sex, Dr. Waite said, indicated that women's sexual satisfaction was not really altered by their marital status.
Throughout three days of paper presentations, at least a half dozen demographers of family structure made strong arguments against cohabitation, offering research showing that those who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates, are more likely to be incompatible and sexually disloyal and are generally less happy than married couples. People who live together without marriage focus too much on their individual careers to care about another very much, said onedemographer; others argued that such people are not necessarily committed to a relationship for the long haul.
Even so, more than half of all marriages now follow cohabitation, and the number of people who live together without marriage at any one time grew 80 percent from 1980 to 1991. Conversely, 1 in 4 Americans over 18 has never married, according to the Census data, compared with 1 in 6 in 1970.
"Marriage is like exercise," Dr. Waite said. "You have to give people the information, and some are going to say, 'I know this is good for me, and I am going to push myself, and I am going to have a healthier and more satisfying life.' And as much as they like the single's scene, they are going to negotiate."
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