Marriage does make most people happier, according to a new study.
Even if around half of all marriages end in divorce, actually tying the knot is better than living in a de facto partnership or remaining single, according to Swiss economist Professor Bruno Frey.
“To be married really contributes to happiness,” Prof Frey told AAP.
“The reason I see that is that people expect a stronger sense of commitment which they like and just to have a partner is obviously considered to be something else.”
Professor Frey, of the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, is the co-researcher of a study into the relationship between happiness and marriage which surveyed 15,000 people over 17 years.
Gosh. It’s always so surprising when that which has been practised in some form by nearly all cultures in history turns out to have some actual benefits. And here I was assuming that everyone was getting married because they were all stuck in pointless, outdated, backward and unenlightened traditions. I guess our chronological snobbery wasn’t entirely justified on this point. Oh, well.
And yet we deny it to homosexuals. Go figure.
Yeah, but I wonder why its a not sought after where SSB is legal? Hmmm, maybe the whole push is a ruse, maybe?
KAR … Huh?????
Well something does not add up for me between this story, #2 comment and the “Insight” link, something is askew somewhere.
#2
Well said.
#1
It often depends on what one means by ‘marriage’.
#3
Glad you’re in favour of full church marriages for homosexual persons. You are in very good company (# 2, 4, 6).
#6 – Ah, there’s no praise like self-praise (which is no praise).
John B. Chilton – No, we don’t deny it to homosexuals. Any adult may marry–at least in the United States–regardless of their sexuality. However, we do not recognize every grouping of adults as a marriage. So it is not homosexuals who are denied marriage; we currently deny (in 49 states) that two men or two women living together in fidelity to one another constitutes a marriage. This may seem like a fine point, but I think it is important to be clear about this.
John scholasticus – I suppose you might be right, but I have no idea, since I don’t know what the antecedent to your “it” may be.
Everyone – I don’t think the church has ever recognized homosexual, loving, mutual commitments as marriages. Does anyone with a better grasp of church history know if the church has ever done so? Are there instances prior to the 20th century? (I mean other than supposed tacit support of clandestine homosexual love, as some suggest David and Jonathan enjoyed, for instance.) Can any of you who have a better sense of world history than I tell me if there are instances of historical states recognizing homosexual unions as marriages? I imagine that there are, but I don’t know of any offhand.
I take the great weight of history to be an important argument, though I don’t take it to be a proof. Marriage has always been culturally important (in its many forms), and for that reason I think we should not abandon it — as it seems we have attempted to do in recent decades.
But I know that marriage _has_ had many forms, and I think that many changes that have occurred in the West have been positive, like preferring monogamy to polygamy, and allowing women to escape from abusive husbands. For that reason, I don’t yet see the case for expanding the legal definition of marriage to include gay couples, but I am open to considering it. Historical precedents can be helpful (though again, not wholly authoritative) in such considerations.
I feel for those who are both unmarried and unemployed. This doubles ones sense of insecurity and either drives you crazy or draws you closer to the One who is both Lover and Provider.