Marriage Matters. It’s Important!

This blog post is a continuation of my series on the advantages and disadvantages of marriage. Today’s post deals with the health implications of marriage.

Higher stress hormones—epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisone—and three related hormones are associated with higher probabilities of a husband’s withdrawal in response to a wife’s negative behavior during a conflict (J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 4/96,Vol.64.No.2,324-332). Abrasive arguments between husbands and wives are linked to weakening of certain immune responses and increase in levels of stress hormones, increasing susceptibility to illness, particularly infectious diseases and perhaps cancer. The more negative behaviors couples show toward each other, the more their immune measures are weakened (Psychosomatic Medicine 59:339-349). Couples who demonstrate negative behaviors toward each other during discussions—sarcasm, putdowns, overt nastiness, and dismissals—show indications of weakened immune systems compared to other couples who behave more positively. These results are found both for newlyweds as well as older couples married for many years (ibid.). Happily married people also show greater proliferation of white blood cells when exposed to foreign invaders than do other subjects (Gottman, The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work 1999,page5-6).