Is marriage all its cracked up to be?
Because when it comes to marriage in America, the statistics can look pretty grim. Fewer than half of all American households in 2025 were married couples, according to the U.S. Census, down from a peak of 72% in 1960 More Americans are putting off marriage until later, according to the U.S. Census and about a third of all marriages end in divorce, according to the Pew Research Center.
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In Connecticut, 47% of all households are married, according to Census Reporter.
And yet, when it comes to healthand longevity, marriage consistently correlates with longer life expectancy and lower mortality rates, especially for men, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Married men and women lived longer and spent more years disability-free than unmarried peers, the NIH reported. What about couples who just live together? A large 2023 Danish study published in the Journal of Demographic Economics that found that people who live with a partner—whether never married, divorced, or widowed—generally live longer than those who live alone.
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Why that is has been a matter of debate among social scientists and psychologists, said Alessandra Bryant, director and assistant professor of the practice, marriage and family therapy at Fairfield University
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“Typically, marriage improves behaviors, it improves habits,” Bryant said. “Our behaviors tend to mirror those of our spouses.” She said married couples tend to have lower rates of heart disease, obesity, depression and inflammation. A studyreleased in April found that married people even have lower rates of cancer. The study, published in the peer reviewed Cancer Research Communications found that people who had never married had substantially higher cancer rates than those who were or had been married. Incidence of cancer was 68% higher in never-married men and 85% higher in never-married women, according to the study.
It all could simply go back to evolution, said Julie Liefield, a professor of marriage and family therapy at Southern Connecticut State University. “We are social mammals by nature, and just going back to our evolution, we do better in groups and we do better in social, cooperative groups,” she said
Bryant agreed, adding the same holds true even for those in “bad” marriages. However, Liefield said “high-conflict divorce” and issues like abuse “are factors that severely harmed people’s wellness.”
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Dr. Charles Herrick, a psychiatrist at Northwell Health, said the benefits of marriage date to evolution. “Having a family is part of what makes us human and those connections are incredibly powerful,” he said. It’s also true that “healthy people tend to seak out healthy people and rich people tend to seek out rich people.” Health and economics play a large role in longevity, he said.
“They are responsible for each other,” Bryant said of spouses. “Close relationships, even if they are dysfunctional, lend themselves to longevity because they are the opposite of social isolation. Social isolation is related to higher risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression and other conditions.”
In fact, one large meta-analysis published in Perspectives on Psychological Science found that social isolation, loneliness and living alone were associated with a roughly 26%–32% increased risk of premature death. “A lot of people stay in marriages even if they’re unhappy because they don’t want to be alone,” said Bryant. “When you’re with someone, especially for men who have a female partner who takes on the emotional work of the relationship, someone’s on their case about (their health). Losing that safety net has potential risks.”
Although marriage benefits both parties
in terms of longevity, research show that it benefits men even more. Marriage reduces cardiovascular risks and lowers overall mortality rates Research indicates married men can expect to live roughly 2.5 to 8 years longer than their single or never-married counterparts, Harvard reports
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“In life, marriage or co-habitating is a natural inclination,” Bryant said. “We are not meant to be alone. Hyper-individualism has played a part in delaying our finding a life partner. All of us possess the same care needs of being seen, of being validated, of being cared for. When that need is met, we thrive. We watch ourselves flourish in ways that we could never do alone.”
Liefield laments that such large-scale data does not yet exist for LGBT couples. “Why aren’t they studying that is my question,” she said.
Of course, it could simply be that healthier people tend to get married in the first place, said Liefield. “Let’s say in general you are a well person,” she explained. “You’re socially healthy, you’re physically healthy. You select a partner that’s going to be healthier. Those are the people that are going to work on their marriages, because we all know that long term relationships are not easy. It’s all about problem-solving and relationship is simply based in how healthy your ability to solve problems is.”
Conversely, she said, “When we pick a partner that is unwell, our marriage is going to be unwell and so are we,” she said.
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Women who live longer than men, also tend to have greater social support outside of marriage, Liefeld said
However, studies also show that single women tend to be happier than their married counterparts. A 2024 study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that single women tend to be happier, more satisfied with their relationship status and less interested in finding a romantic partner than single men. The authors speculated that women often have stronger social support networks and may receive fewer benefits from romantic relationships than men do
“If we have a secure attachment in our relationship with a good sense of self among both partners, a person generally has greater relationship satisfaction, which is also associated with longevity,” said Bryant
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