Posted December 30, Reviewed by Jessica Schrader. Does getting married make you happier, healthier, more integrated into society, and better off in all sorts of other physical, emotional, and interpersonal ways? Plus, there are important ways in which lifelong single people do better than people who get married. Let me explain. They are biased in ways that make married people seem to be doing better than they really are, and single people worse as explained in more detail here and here and here.
Used as the basis for claiming that getting married benefits people psychologically, the comparisons are scientifically indefensible. In some studies, including a few based on large, representative national samples, it is the single people who are healthiest. If you follow people over time as they go from being single to getting married and staying married, they end up no happier than they were when they were single.
Those who get married and then divorce end up, on the average, less happy than they were when they were single. Getting married is no royal road to longevity , either. For example, they do more to maintain their ties to friends, siblings, parents, neighbors, and coworkers than married people do. They do more than their share of volunteering and helping people, such as aging parents, who need a lot of help.
They experience more autonomy and self-determination, and more personal growth and development. Ever since I gave an address at the American Psychological Association in August, making the points I just summarized, celebratory headlines have multiplied. Some claim that single people are happier or that they live richer, more meaningful lives. After decades of seeing nothing but Marriage Wins headlines, one would think I should take some pleasure in this whole new sensibility.
Yes, it is true that there are some profoundly important ways in which single people are doing better than married people. Even so, there are several reasons you should be skeptical, regardless of whether you are being told that marriage wins or single life wins:. Something else is important, too: We have a better chance to live our best lives if we are not impoverished or disadvantaged in other significant ways.
