I have always thought marriage made for happier lives – at least in most cases. But I never realized it could mean longer lives.

A new study now reports that marriage is linked to significantly better physical and mental health – at least for women. Brendan Case and Ying Chen, writing in The Wall Street Journal, report a new study in the journal Global Epidemiology that makes this unexpected claim. They examined 11,830 American nurses, all women, who were initially never married, and compared those who got married between 1989 and 1993 with those who remined unmarried. They assess how their lives turned out on a wide range of important outcomes – including psychological well-being, health and longevity after about 25 years. The results may surprise you.

They say that in most cases they were able to control for the nurses’ well-being and health in 1989, before any of them had gotten married, as well as for a host of other relevant factors, such as age, race and socioeconomic status. This helped them rule out the possibility that, for example, happiness predicted marriage rather than being predicted by it, or that both happiness and marriage might be predicted by some hidden third factor.

They admit their findings were striking. The women who got married in the initial time frame, including those who subsequently divorced, had a 35% lower risk of death for any reason for the follow-up period than those who did not marry in that period. Compared to those who didn’t marry, the married women also had lower risk of cardiovascular disease, less depression and loneliness, were happier and more optimistic, and had a greater sense of purpose and hope.

They also examined the effects of staying married versus becoming divorced. Among those who were already married at the start of the study, divorce was associated with consistently worse subsequent health and well-being, including greater loneliness and depression, and lower levels of social integration. There was also somewhat less robust evidence that women who divorced had a 19% higher risk of death for any reason over the 25 years of follow-up than those who stayed married. Given how many factors influence health and well-being (genes, diet, exercise, environment, social network, etc.), the fact that marriage could reduce 25-year mortality by more than a third – and that divorce could possibly increase it by nearly a fifth – indicates how important it remains even for modern life.

There are limitations of this study. The study sample was mostly white and relatively well-off professional women deciding about marriage in the early 1990s. The study tells us nothing about the effects of marriage on men. The authors acknowledge these limitations. They say, “Nonetheless, our study’s focus on women offers important insights in view of the continuing hold of feminist critiques of marriage as an instrument of patriarchal domination. Other things being equal (and of course in particular cases they often aren’t), marriage – with the support, companionship and affection it offers – is still a crucial constituent of a flourishing life for many women.”

They also express concerns for new generations, such as Gen-Xers, who seem to live by different social standards. In the past 30 years, norms against extramarital cohabitation have relaxed considerably. As recently as 2001, Gallup found that only 53% of Americans thought sex outside of marriage was morally acceptable, but by 2021 that figure was 76%. The impact these changes in attitudes will have on marriage are undetermined at this time, but the authors say recent research has typically found that unmarried cohabiting couples report less happiness and relationship stability than do married couples.

This is no surprise for students of the Bible, who understand that marriage is an institution created by God for the procreation of mankind and the fulfillment of men and women. That research now confirms that women are happier and live longer when married is only confirming that what God created is a good thing, intended for mankind’s benefit. But the declining appreciation of that fact in our modern culture bodes poorly for our future.