Marriage and Mental Health

by Maggie Gallagher

Marriage protects against mental illness and psychological distress. One study following young adults for seven years found that, even after taking into account the mental health of people prior to marriage, marriage boosted the mental health and reduced depression among young adults. Another study investigating the mental health of 13,000 men and women in older middle age (51 to 61 years), found that after controlling for race, education, family structure, income, and living arrangements, married people were less depressed and emotionally healthier than comparable singles. Yet another longitudinal study following a nationally representative sample of men and women over five years found that, after controlling for initial mental health status, the mental health of all singles (never married, separated, divorced and widowed) declined compared to those who remained married over the entire period. Singles who failed to marry became more depressed and less happy over the period.

When young men and women do marry, they typically smoke less, drink less, and use illegal drugs less. For example, single men drink almost twice as much as married men of the same age. In a recent national survey, one out of four young single men (ages 19 to 26) say their drinking causes them problems at work or problems with aggression, compared to about one in seven married guys the same age. Another study looked at the psychological well-being of young adults over a seven year period, including problems with alcohol. Young adults who married experienced sharper drops in levels of problem drinking than young adults who stay single. Divorced and widowed men also show substantially more problems with alcohol than similarly aged married men.

Maternal depression is both a serious mental health problem for women and a serious risk factor for children. One study of 2,300 urban adults found that, among parents of pre-schoolers for example, the risk of depression was substantially greater for unmarried than married people.

One study of 80,000 suicides in the United States found that both widowed and divorced people were about three times as likely to commit suicide as the married. Although more men than women successfully kill themselves, married women were also substantially less likely to commit suicide than divorced, widowed or never married women.

In the last half-century, suicide rates among teens and young adults (ages 15 to 24) have tripled. The single "most important explanatory variable", according to an important new study, "is the increased share of youths living in homes with a divorced parent." The effect, note the researchers "is large" explaining "as much as two-thirds of the increase in youth suicides" over time.

Maggie Gallagher serves as Director of the Marriage Program at Institute for American Values and co-authored The Case for Marriage with Linda J. Waite (Doubleday: 2000).