The study of more than 6,000 women looked at the risks and benefits of marriage.
It found women who cohabited with their partners rather than being married to them were also more likely to suffer domestic abuse and/or abuse drugs. The less time they had lived together, the higher their risk.
Research leader Dr. Marcelo Urquia, from the University of Toronto, said: ‘We did not see that pattern among married women, who experienced less psychosocial problems, regardless of the length of time they lived together with their spouses.’
The study found that 10.6 per cent of married women suffering from post-natal depression.
The figure rose to 20 per cent for women cohabiting in ‘common-law’ relationships and 35 per cent for single women.
Most dramatically, it rose to 67 per cent for women who were separated or divorced in the year prior to the birth of a child.
[…]The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, coincides with the latest [UK] Census figures unveiled this week which revealed married couple households are in the minority for the first time.
While the number of married people stays constant at 21.2 million, the number of single adults households has rises by three million compared with 2001.
The census report said there were just under 2.3 million cohabiting couples last year, compared to 2.06 million in 2001.
Cohabitees now make up 10 per cent of all households, while married couples lead 33 per cent of households.
Lone parent households make up another 10 per cent, and 30 per cent of homes have just one individual.
The troubling thing to me is that people aren’t serious about doing what it takes to prepare for marriage, and then choosing the right person for the job. Everyone knows that marriage is better for you financially, emotionally, and for your health, but somehow, people treat it as a casino game. We don’t know how to prepare for marriage with practices that work, like chastity, courting and church attendance. Bad outcomes like cohabitation, divorce and single motherhood don’t just happen by accident. People choose wrong approaches because they don’t want to do things the right way.
Norwegian researchers confirm and extend Brad Wilcox and Steven Nock’s research suggesting that egalitarianism sets couples up to fail:
“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.
The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said. “One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.
The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on. The reasons, Mr Hansen said, lay only partially with the chores themselves. “Maybe it’s sometimes seen as a good thing to have very clear roles with lots of clarity … where one person is not stepping on the other’s toes,” he suggested. “There could be less quarrels, since you can easily get into squabbles if both have the same roles and one has the feeling that the other is not pulling his or her own weight.”
The companionate theory of marriage suggests that egalitarianism in practice and belief leads to higher marital quality for wives and higher levels of positive emotion work on the part of husbands. Our analysis of women’s marital quality and men’s marital emotion work provides little evidence in support of this theory. Rather, in examining women’s marital quality and men’s emotional investments in marriage, we find that dyadic commitment to institutional ideals about marriage and women’s contentment with the division of household tasks are more critical. We also show that men’s marital emotion work is a very important determinant of women’s marital quality. We conclude by noting that her marriage is happiest when it combines elements of the new and old: that is, gender equity and normative commitment to the institution of marriage.
And more again from Elusive Wapiti’s post about the new Norwegian study:
Men’s emotion work (and women’s assessments of that work) is the most crucial determinant of women’s marital quality. It is more important than patterns of household labor, perceptions of housework equity, female labor force participation, childbearing, education and a host of other traditional predictors of global marital quality. This finding suggests that the functions, character, and stability of contemporary marriages are intimately tied to [women’s] emotional well-being.
…our findings suggest that increased departures from a male-breadwinning/female-homemaking model may also account for declines in marital quality, insofar as men and women continue to tacitly value gendered patterns of behavior in marriage. Specifically, we find that the gendered character of marriage seems to remain sufficiently powerful as a tacit ideal among women to impact women’s marital quality, even apart from the effects of the continuing mismatch between female gender role attitudes and male practices.
[W]omen are not happier in marriages marked by egalitarian practices and beliefs…For the most part, marriages that are more egalitarian in belief and practice are not marked by higher levels of men’s positive emotion work [EW: love, affection, and understanding] or by women’s happiness with such emotion work…women who are more egalitarian-minded and more upset with the division of household labor receive lower levels of positive emotion work from their husbands, perhaps because they are more likely to initiate conflict with their husbands. Thus, rising expectations among women for marital equality may also have the unintended effect of lowering investments in marital emotion work on the part of men. [N]o measure of egalitarianism in practice or belief is associated with higher levels of men spending quality time with their wives. Indeed, in keeping with the gender model of marriage, wives’ gender egalitarianism and work outside of the home leads to less positive emotion work on the part of husbands.
Instead, we find modest evidence that wives’ gender traditionalism is independently related to higher levels of men’s positive emotion work in marriage. We also find evidence that homemaking wives report greater happiness with their husband’s emotion work, and may be more likely to receive such work from their husbands. In other words, adherence to traditional beliefs and practices regarding gender seems to be tied not only to global marital happiness but also – surprisingly enough – to expressive patterns of marriage.
[S]hared church attendance and normative support for the institution of marriage are associated with higher levels of women’s marital happiness. Thus, declines in religious attendance over the past four decades (Steensland, Park, Regnerus, Robinson, Wilcox and Woodberry 2000), along with the liberalization of attitudes to divorce and extramarital sex (Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001), may also account for recent shifts in marital quality insofar as they reduce the social and normative supports that foster higher investments in marriage.
Wives who share high levels of church attendance are more likely to report happiness with their husband’s emotion work in marriage. Moreover, wives who share a normative commitment to marriage with their husbands are more likely to report happiness with the emotion work done by their husbands…socially conservative practices and (possibly) beliefs appear to be linked to lower expectations of marital emotion work on the part of women. But it is also possible that they are associated with more expressive marriages. In any case, women who share a commitment to the institution of marriage with their husbands express greater happiness. [2]
He has an interesting graph there of what women want from marriage, and what men want. Who knew that women wanted gardening?
In any case, I really do think that this is important to understand, because I see a lot of pastors and evangelical leaders embracing egalitarianism, because they can’t make the case for complementarianism using anything except the Bible. Well, the Bible does support complementarianism. But when you are debating it with an egalitarian, it helps to have the evidence.
This is a must-see debate! (And you can buy Michael Brown’s new book here if you like it – I bought two copies)
About the debate:
On April 21, 2011 at 7:30pm at UCF’s Health and Public Affairs Building (Room 119), Rollins College professor, Dr. Eric Smaw and author and seminary professor Dr. Michael L. Brown will debate the question “Should same sex marriage be legalized in America?” The event will be held at 4000 Central Florida Blvd and is open to the public. After the formal portion of the debate, Brown and Smaw will field questions from the audience.
About the speakers:
Dr. Smaw will be responding in the affirmative. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Law from the University of Kentucky in 2005. His areas of expertise are philosophy of law, international law, human rights, ethics, and modern philosophy. He has published articles on human rights, terrorism, and cosmopolitanism. His most recent publication is “Swaying in the Balance: Civil Liberties, National Security, and Justice in Times of Emergency”.
Dr. Brown will be responding in the negative. He earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is a nationally known evangelical lecturer and radio host. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and twenty books, including the recently published study “A Queer Thing Happened to America”, which is quickly being recognized as the definitive work on the history and effects of gay activism on American culture.
There is no compelling reasons by the state should change the definition of marriage
The reason the state conveys benefits for marriage is because marriage is beneficial for the state
Traditional marriage is recognized by the state for several reasons:
– it domesticates men
– it protects women
– it provides a stable, nurturing environment for children
Marriage has three public purposes:
– to bind men and women together for RESPONSIBLE procreation
– to get the benefit
– to provide children with two parents who are bonded to them biologically
– to create the next generation of people to keep the society going
Normally, opposite sex couples create children
Homosexual couples can NEVER create children together
Men and women are differences that are complementary
Monogamy is the norm for opposite sex couples.
For gay men, open relationships / cheating is the norm.
This is because women have a tempering effect on sexuality.
There is no evidence that recognizing same-sex civil unions and marriages have changed this trend.
Same-sex marriage guarantees that children will either not have a father or a mother
So which of the sexes is dispensable when raising children?
For example, consider Dawn Stefanowicz, who grew up with a gay father and no mother
She never got a chance to see a man model love and protect a women within a marriage
That makes an enormous difference in a woman’s life – in the way she relates to men
Even with scientific advancements, every baby has a mother and a father
If we change the definition of marriage so that it is based on consent, then why limit it to just two people
If marriage is not the union of male and female, then why have only TWO people
In Canada, you have civil liberties lawyers arguing for for polygamy
In the United States, Professor David Epstein was in a consensual relationship with his daughter
Should incestuous relationships also be celebrated as marriage? Why not?
Should polyamorous relationships also be celebrated as marriage? Why not?
Sexual orientation is not the same as race
Men are women are different in significant ways, but different races are not
You need separate bathrooms for men and women, but not for people of different races
Summary of Dr. Smaw’s opening speech: (He ended his speech after only 10 minutes)
You can redefine marriage so that it no longer based on the public purposes he mentioned (controlling procreation, fusing complementary male and female natures, providing children with mothers and fathers who are biologically linked to them, providing children with a comparatively stable development environment that offers comparatively less instability, promiscuity and domestic violence rates compared to cohabitation, etc.), but is instead based on consent and feelings, and that redefinition of marriage won’t open marriage up to polygamy, polyamory, etc.
If you like feminism, then you should allow same-sex marriage
If you like abortion rights, then you should allow same-sex marriage
Homosexuals participate in society by working at various jobs, so they are participating in society
Homosexuals should be given the same tax breaks as married people because they work at various jobs for money
Working at a job for money achieves the same public purpose as procreating and staying together to raise children in a stable environment
You can listen to the rest for the rebuttals, and cross-examination. Oh yes – there was cross-examination! It starts two thirds of the way through Part 5, if you want to jump to it. And sparks were flying! There is also Q&A from the audience of students.
This is such a great debate – I love to hear two passionate guys disagreeing about something. I love to hear both sides of the issues. There is always something to learn by listening to the other side. It makes me more effective and more tolerant when I stand up to defend my side of the argument.
WINTERY KNIGHT 