Marriage = Game Over

We've talked about the changes in marriage trends as people are getting married less often, and later on in life. In the research that's been done many individuals source reasons such as fear of divorce, desire to be financially stable, and fear of losing "freedom."

Freedom can be defined by anything from boys/girls weekends, to having awesome sex, to sadness and despair in its wake. People are legitimately believing this - you may be believing this. But I ask you then - if it's terrible, why are people still getting married? Better yet, why are they staying married?

The benefits of marriage are a widely popular study in the field of family sciences, and that's because as the culture, definitions and parameters surrounding marriage change, it's important that we reevaluate to make sure they're still the same, and so far so good. Now, before jumping in to the benefits, let's talk about means and norms. These things are going to be true for most couples, there are some who these don't hold true for, for a multitude of reasons. There always exceptions to rules.

Linda J. Waite from the University of Chicago is a sociologist who studies families. Her emphasis is strongly in the field of couples and marriage and she's pretty well known in the field for her extensive work. In several studies she has found that married people are not only happier, on average, than single, divorced, or widowed individuals, but healthier.

In the case of men the level of risk-taking behaviors (drug use, binge drinking, etc.) drops dramatically. Because individuals have someone to support them in healthy living, the health benefits increase significantly. Married individuals also have twice the sex of single people, and statistically similar amounts to cohabiting individuals. And most importantly, while men and women both experience up-swings in happiness once they're married, the difference for men is much greater - than even those who are living with their partner.

Both genders experience these benefits, but by and large men experience a much greater jump in all categories than women. There's much speculation about why this could be, but it's just that - speculation. So does marriage equal game over? To me, it looks like it's game on.

Men and Women - Different Planets?

Pop Quiz: What's the best-selling self-help book of all time?

How to Win Friends and Influence People?
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People?

Nope, Covey and Carnegie couldn't even compete when it came to John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. According to CNN it's sold over 50 million copies world wide (pretty rare for a self-help book) and is considered the #1 best-selling piece of non-fiction from the 1990's. Kind of impressive. 

It would be more impressive if his claims had legitimate social science backing, but that's fine. However you get your cash money right? 

If you've never heard of it before this moment then that means you're super young, but even then you can pretty much guess the premise. You've probably even had experiences that point to the validity of his claims. We've all been to that point in a relationship when we wonder if we're dating someone who even speaks the same language as us, and we blame it on the 'ol gender differences. 

However, when we actually look at the differences between men and women, we find that the only behavioral difference that actually exists (statistically speaking) is women's exceptional ability to have and display empathy for others. In every other category - including aggression, self-disclosure, desire for emotional support, and assertiveness - the differences are minute.

As far as Gray's claim that men and women need different things from relationships, a 2006 article published by Dr. Jason Carroll outlined a relationship quality prediction model, which had a 65% prediction rate for women, and 67% for men. Statistically, that's gold. What he found was that the combination of 3 factors contributed to happy relationships for both men and women. What are they? Effective negotiation (i.e. problem solving, conflict resolution, listening), Other-centeredness (i.e. forgiveness, kindness, sacrifice) and personal security (i.e. self-worth, personality characteristics).

When these categories are broken down into their individual couple processes (forgiveness, problem solving, etc.) we find two major differences between men and women - women are more likely to claim "relationship satisfaction" in the presence of positive elements such as partner's displays of kindness and sacrifice, and men are more likely to feel satisfied in their relationship in the absence of negative. These are important differences to understand in a relationship, but Gray's claims don't even come close to expressing this notion in his book.

Finally, in an article published by Reis and Carothers in 2012 assessed gender differences in both behavioral and psychological categories through 24 different variables including personality traits, sexual attitudes and behaviors, and measures of intimacy. They found not only found that men and women really aren't that different, but also that many of the complaints that happen between heterosexual couples are also found in gay and lesbian relationships.

So do men and women really have completely different emotional make-ups? According to repeat findings in the research, the answer is, "no." And I feel like Reis nailed it when he said, "Clearly, it's not so much sex, but human character that causes difficulties."

Finding Yourself Before Marriage

This morning one of my friends posted an article entitled "Married at 19: Worth Every 'Lost Experience,'" and of course I had to read it. The author talked about the benefits of marrying young, such as growing together with her spouse, learning sacrifice and selflessness, and having a built-in support system during the difficult developing years of her early twenties. Naturally, as comes with posting your opinion in cyber space, the onslaught of opposing viewpoints followed. One person in her late twenties mentioned the financial problems she was having and how being connected to another person would've compounded that into financial disaster. Another man expressed his distaste for the "throwback post" to the 1950's, and cited that one in two people married right out of high school will divorce. He mentioned the ability to have an education, be more financially secure and being able to "find yourself" as great benefits to post-poning marriage.

It's no secret that the average age of marriage has been steadily increasing for the last decade, and each of the reasons mentioned have been accepted as explanations of why it should continue. But are they really? Can the author of the article really be happy without experiencing the freedom of singlehood? Is it possible to beat the odds? And more importantly, are things such as greater financial security, education and life experience actually essential to a happy marriage?

In order to figure it out, we only need to ask one question which can provide us several answers - Was the early-marriage hater right? Do those married out of high school really have higher divorce rates? Rather than throw around randomly Googled statistics, let's look at a real graph from a real peer-reviewed, published article.

Heaton, T. B. (2002). Factors Contributing to Increasing Marital Stability in the United States. Journal of Family Issues

For those non-statisticians, what we're seeing on the left of this graph is an 80% chance of divorce for persons married at the age of 15 and younger - shocker, right? However, once we hit 18-20 we've dropped to about 40% - so our hater wasn't too far off. By the time we get to age 21 though, it's gone almost down to 20% and we see it on a steady decline from there. But honestly, the statistical significance of a divorce rate moving from 22% - 18% in this particular data set is pretty much nothing.

So that was only one study, no big deal right? Actually, Norval D. Glenn (kind of a sociological legend) from the University of Texas found the same exact findings in 5 different data sets from around the United States. That's the statistical equivalent of "What now suckas?!"

So hater was kind of right. But the bigger question here is: is stability the only thing you're looking for in a marriage? Because yeah, if you want a better chance of staying married, wait until at least 21, but if you want a happy marriage with great sex, you might want to start looking at the age of 20 and hope you get to where you're going before 25. Check it out.

The Glenn data sets also showed a curvilinear relationship between age of marriage and marital satisfaction. This means that as age of marriage goes up, satisfaction in marriage starts to go up until it plateaus at 20, and then takes a dive again at age 25. In a follow up study done by researchers at Brigham Young University they found that couples married after age 24 displayed lower levels of effective communication and significantly lower levels of sexual satisfaction.

Now, if you were married after 25, or are currently 25 and unmarried don't start freaking out on me, there are several factors that contribute to these trends, and unlike our hater friend, I won't tell you that statistics determine your fate. I'll just make you read another post on what you can do to not become a statistic. But I digress...

The greatest trend that we're seeing in why marriages from 22-25 have higher satisfaction is actually what was said in the Married at 19 article - couples are able to grow together. Despite having more life experience, education, greater income, etc., research is finding that this process of waiting to "finding yourself" makes the concept of you very solid. Marriage requires flexibility, sacrifice and selflessness. When young adults spend more time becoming independent, the outcome is a more difficult process of bringing two people together in a relationship.

So what is the right age for marriage? Honestly, social science will probably always refuse to answer that questions, but I'm going to side with Norval himself on this one when he says, "it would be premature to conclude that the optimal time for first marriage for most persons is ages 22-25. However, the findings do suggest that most persons have little or nothing to gain in the way of marital success by deliberately postponing marriage beyond the mid-twenties."