For Better … or Best

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 27, 2000 | by Cheryl Wetzstein

The advantages of matrimony are many, according to the authors of a new book promoting the benefits of marriage, including longer, healthier lives and bigger bank accounts.

Marriage is more than "just a sheet of paper"; it's an insurance policy that, more often than not, brings couples long lives, good health, fat bank accounts and personal happiness, say Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher in their book, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially (Doubleday, $24.95,256 pp). The authors, who base their conclusions on hundreds of studies and surveys, say the evidence about the benefits of marriage is "overwhelming," and call on parents, counselors, lawmakers and clergy to do all they can to revive the institution.

"Marriage cannot thrive, and may not even survive, in a culture that views it as just another lifestyle option," they warn.

Waite, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago and codirector of the Alfred P. Sloan Working Families Center, decided to write The Case for Marriage because she saw marriage and remarriage rates steadily slipping, while divorce rates remained high. She also was hearing disparaging comments about wedlock from friends and family -- that a marriage license was "just a piece of paper" and that marriage was harmful to women.

To find out whether marriage mattered, Waite sifted through years of national surveys, comparing married people with unmarried people in all demographic groups. She found that married people came out ahead in dozens of categories, including longevity, physical and mental health, sexual satisfaction and financial assets. The evidence is "screamingly" clear that marriage not only is desirable, but it's also the healthiest model for adults, children and society, argues Waite.

The book makes "a scientific case about the broad and powerful consequences of marriage for children and adults," adds Gallagher, director of the Marriage Project at the Institute for American Values in New York City and a syndicated columnist. But the book offers "new arguments and new information" as well.

For instance, a key asset of marriage is its unique vow of permanence, which allows spouses to develop and invest in a long-term strategy to handle challenges together. "Singles must accomplish all of life's tasks [by] themselves," write the authors. "But in a marriage, each partner can choose from among the things that have to be done, according to what he or she especially likes or does especially well."

The book also challenges the notion that "a bad marriage is a fixed and certain thing," says Gallagher. Unhappy marriages do not necessarily stay that way. Waite found that 86 percent of couples who rated their marriage as unhappy in 1988 were happier five years later.

The authors further assert that marriage is not a purely private relationship, despite comments such as those of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who once said "the only two people who count in any marriage are the two who are in it." Such a view of marriage "is objectively wrong," according to the authors. "When you marry, the public commitment you made changes the way you think about yourself and your beloved; it changes the way you act and think about the future; and it changes how other people and other institutions treat you as well."

Some experts question whether the case for marriage is airtight. Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington and a member of the Council on Contemporary Families, believes Waite and Gallagher draw a lot of conclusions without differentiating whether they stem from "weak data" or "strong data." Schwartz further questions the book's unabashed call to revive marriage.

"There's nothing that's right for everybody," Schwartz says. The feminist revolution, the sexual revolution and the divorce revolution wouldn't have come about if the traditional marriage model worked so well, she argues. People who are "not suited" to be married or have children shouldn't feel pressured to do those things, nor should cohabitants be pushed into a marriage commitment. "The idea of choice is very precious."

Lois Gold, a marriage counselor and divorce mediator in Portland, Ore., and author of the 1992 book, Between Love and Hate: A Guide to Civilized Divorce, adds that "divorce is the last alternative." Of the 1,000 or so "divorcing or separating couples I've seen," says Gold, none took the decision lightly or entered into it "without enormous anguish, pain and discussion." Moreover, some 90 percent of the couples had been through marriage counseling.

However, Judith Mueller, founder of the Women's Center in Vienna, Va., has faith in the institution of marriage. She created the center 25 years ago, and "just as no-fault divorce was taking off we were helping women get divorced," she explains. After seeing the personally traumatic, financially "horrendous" experiences of women who divorced, the center's focus has turned "180 degrees the other way." Now it does a lot of prenuptial and couples counseling, family strengthening and family preservation.