You know how women are encouraged to think about their wedding day far in advance of even going out with someone? The way women, even really young ones, are meant to make themselves available for a guy to ask out in the hope that they might stay together and get married, etc. Or how famous young women are asked consistently about their plans for a family in a way famous young men aren’t?
Well, research has suggested that all of this really is bullshit because marriage doesn’t even benefit women’s health or emotional wellbeing!
Research done by UCL, LSE and The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that single men’s health deteriorates much more than single women’s.
While a biomarker of heart problems rose from 14% between men who were married and men who weren’t, there was no noticeable difference in this between married and unmarried women.
George Ploubidis, a population health scientist at the UCL Institute of Education said: ‘Not marrying or cohabiting is less detrimental among woman than men.’
He continues: ‘Being married appears to be more beneficial for men.’
In fact, divorcing in their mid-to-late twenties actually benefited women, who had 31% lower odds of metabolic syndrome compared to women who stayed married.
All of this research was done on more than 10,000 people born in Scotland, England and Wales in the same week of spring in 1958, and published in The American Journal of Public Health, reports The Telegraph.
We wouldn’t need this research to say that making women focus on settling down and having a wedding, marriage and kids like good little girls is patronising and unnecessary. But really, isn’t it ridiculous that marriage – something which might do more harm than good to women – is touted as a must-have for us but not seen as something a man should give a crap about until he's like, five years into a relationship?
Surely it should be something we do because we want to, not because we’re nagged to do it!
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.