vindianz.com (15 Dec, 2009) — Regardless of the barbs of comedians and the stunning bust-ups documented in the gossip magazines, marriage actually is good for you, international research has found.
A study of virtually 34,500 people in 15 countries found married people are less expected to suffer from depression, anxiety and substance abuse, clinical psychologist Kate Scott of New Zealand’s University of Otago said Tuesday.
“What our study points to be that the marital relationship offers numerous mental health benefits for both men and women and that the suffering and disruption linked with ending marriage can make people susceptible to developing mental disorders,” Scott said.
Being separated, divorced, or widowed is related with improved danger of mental health disorders in both men and women, predominantly with depression in men and drugs and alcohol abuse in women.
“One of the more important findings is that in recent years it has been asserted that marriage is better for men than for women in terms of mental health. This study does not agree with that position,” Scott said.
“We found that compared to never getting married, getting married is good for both men and women in terms of most mental health disorders.”
However the study did find that men were less possible to become depressed in their first marriage than women, and Scott said this may be due to women being more likely to follow the conventional role of a wife first time around. Other studies have found that as gender roles have become less traditional, with women functioning more and becoming better educated, female depression has fallen. The latest study too found getting married reduced the danger of substance abuse more for women than for men.
This may be due to facts that women slash their alcohol consumption sharply when they became pregnant and this often continued while the children were young, Scott said.
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