Posted on 05/12/2016 5:34:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
Let's call this the most unsurprising headline of the year so far: "Marriage Increases the Odds of Surviving Cancer, Studies Find." Next thing you know they'll be discovering that salt makes you thirsty. I'm not actually belittling the science, more the opposite. Even the most cursory glance at social science data accumulated over the past, oh, 150 years provides copious evidence that we humans do better pair-bonded for life. And if data doesn't convince you, there's also literature, anecdote, tradition and intuition. But let's stick with science for now.
Two studies published in the journal Cancer found that among 800,000 adults diagnosed with cancer between 2000 and 2009, those who were married survived the disease at higher rates than single people -- much higher rates. Especially men. The death rate among unmarried women was 19 percent higher than for married women, and for unmarried men the rate was 27 percent higher. The researchers controlled for factors such as income, health insurance status, race, and more but still found that marriage was a key variable. Scarlett Lin Gomez of the Cancer Prevention Institute, one of the authors, told The Washington Post that money does not explain her results but that "social support" is a "key factor."
It's interesting about the men, isn't it? Marriage confers many benefits on women (though the early feminists were venomously anti-marriage), but study after study has found that when it comes to health and longevity, men benefit even more than women from tying the knot (and keeping it tied).
The Harvard Men's Health Watch, for example, cites a report from the Framingham Offspring Study that evaluated 3,682 adults over a 10-year period for heart-related conditions. Even after taking into account major risk factors such as age, body fat percentage, smoking, blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol, married men had a 46 percent lower rate of death than unmarried men.
Other studies cited by Harvard have found that married men have lower levels of depression, reduced incidence of Alzheimer's disease, improved blood sugar levels, and, as in the studies mentioned above, lower levels of cancer and better survival rates after diagnosis.
When examined through the marriage lens, other differentials in American life can be understood as flowing from this most basic of human relationships. Marriage confers not just health and longevity, but wealth, life satisfaction, community engagement and other social goods. There is a large income gap between white and black Americans. But the marriage rate among African-Americans has been significantly below that of others for several generations (though the white and Hispanic rates of unmarried parenting are sharply increasing). According to 2010 Census data, African-American two-earner married couples had mean incomes above the national average for married couples.
Unfortunately, married couples are the minority in the black community. Sixty-six percent of black children are raised in single parent homes, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The rate for Hispanics is 42 percent and for non-Hispanic whites, 25 percent. In 2013, half of all mothers aged 30 and younger were unwed.
The results of the retreat from marriage have been evident in the black community for some time -- but were co-morbid with other things. Were the high crime rates and poor school performance the result of the collapse of marriage or the residue of slavery and Jim Crow? Were the higher rates of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease in the African-American community related to family structure or poverty, and if the latter, was the poverty the cause or the effect of family structure?
With the Hispanic and white populations now retreating from marriage as well, many of the pathologies that had been politely called "inner city" woes -- widespread drug abuse, joblessness, mental illness and school failure -- are on the upswing among whites. And now there is no comparable history of discrimination to cloud the picture.
Last year, Anne Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton published a much-discussed paper showing that the death rate among middle-aged non-Hispanic whites was increasing and that the rise was attributable to behaviors such as drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. I wrote to Deaton asking whether he and his wife had analyzed the data for marriage. He said no, but someone should.
In 1989, Irving Kristol declined to embrace fully any triumphalism about our victory over the communist world in the Cold War. The cultural cold war, Kristol wrote, was not won but lost. Our political crises are to a very considerable degree downstream of our cultural ones.
The reason that folks die less married is simple - there are better odds that someone’s there to call 911 when you drop.
My first wife was a nagging harpy that she drove me away to divorcing her, and I was highly opposed to divorce.
My last child support payment is this month; I’m 48 and I would consider to start saving for retirement now, no longer being financially cripped except for...
The 2nd wife has ended up being a lying, cheating slut.
To hell with marriage. My oldest son at least, knows to never get married. This society has ruined the concept of marriage and so has its legal system.
I’d rather die simultaneously from ebola, stomach cancer, ricin poisoning and radiation sickness than get married again.
And if I could build a time machine, I would travel back in time to when I first started dating, and beat myself half to death with a baseball bat and then branded my younger self with a red hot iron spelling “Don’t ever marry anyone, you fool”.
Have to agree. Marriage causes cancer of the wallet.
Same applies to marriage.
Some people don’t show their true colors until you marry them. Also, the family/divorce courts incentivize modern women to act the way they do. No-fault divorce and a system that favors them means they don’t have to be held accountable for their actions.
These days, with the legal system rigged against men and fathers, the jogging or biking analogy is not accurate.
Marriage these days is more like playing Russian roulette with 3 rounds in the revolver, or bungee jumping using rubber bands over a pungi pit while setting yourself on fire. It is not like jogging or riding a bike.
The reason that folks die less married is simple - there are better odds that someone’s there to call 911 when you drop.
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My theory is that single men don’t have anybody saying, “You should really see a doctor about that”.
Has Ms. Mona apologized yet for joining the Lewandowsky lynch mob? Until she does, nothing she says has any credibility.
Agree. To restore marriage divorce law must be reformed.
When divorce is permitted (for cause) by default men should get custody of children unless they're judged seriously unfit fathers.
Here's one way statistical analysis can possibly fool you:
It's a known fact that men die earlier than women. So, when you study only MARRIED men, you automatically eliminate the married men who died early. Thus, your sample starts out with only men who have already lived at least as long as their wife, while the sample of unmarried men is likely to be more random.
Its like the argument that buying a house is a net good and makes sense for everyone, because most people are too disciplined to actually save money and a house is the only way to save money.
Oh, most men won’t go to the doctor to have something checked out, unless the wife pushes them to.
What about the men who DO go to the doctor, who DO try to save money or invest it?
Mark Twain said there are “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”.
You have to marry demonstrated moral character. If you marry looks, then it's Russian roulette. And men marry looks all the time - for legitimate biological reasons our brains get short-circuited and we confer the compliment of marriage upon women who qualify physically but in no other way.
How many people have demonstrated moral character, and then you find out they are a child molester or are in-the-closet or are selling secrets to China? Enough to give me pause. Too many wear masks, and too many are good actors doing “good works” until you find out their true colors.
As of late, I’m contemplating my “future”, such as it is, essentially the twilight that will come after the inevitable 2nd divorce.
I’m done with women. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist for me, they are a hostile alien life-form completely unrelated to me that will cause me harm if I involve myself with them.
Dribbling a basketball in a mine field.
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