Marriage, scientific studies find, may in fact be good for your health.
That's right. The scientific community has, once again, succeeded in spending countless hours conducting detailed research only to discover truths that have been readily available for millennia in the Word of God.
A recent New York Times article, "Is Marriage Good for Your Health?" compiles the findings of several studies, old and new, concerning the effects that married couples have on each other. As far back as 1858, epidemiologist William Farr found evidence that caused him to remark, "Marriage is a healthy estate... The single individual is more likely to be wrecked on his voyage than the lives joined together in matrimony."
This sounds like what King Solomon wrote almost 3,000 years ago: "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).
The New York Times article also refers to recent studies whose results will sound strikingly familiar to students of the Bible. One researcher notes, "If you learn how to manage disagreement early...then you can avoid the decline in marital happiness that follows from the drip, drip of negative interactions." Her advice evokes the biblical comparison of family contentions to "a continual dripping" (Proverbs 19:13).
Another study shows that "married people are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer or have heart attacks," while yet another finds that "a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit." Shocking? Not to the writer of Proverbs 12:4, who said, "A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones" (New International Version).
More interesting still are the studies that suggest that the health advantages afforded by marriage almost completely disappear with a divorce or remarriage. "In formerly married individuals, it was as if the marriage advantage had never existed," while "people in second marriages still had 12 percent more chronic health problems and 19 percent more mobility problems" than those still in their first marriage. Jesus Christ was serious when He gave the command, "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Mark 10:9). Such an action appears to incur natural penalties on those involved as well.
Even the findings about the effects of arguments on married couples mesh with Scripture. One study compared the heart-disease risk in couples to recordings of their arguments, only to find a curious correlation. The men and women with the highest risk of heart disease were not those who had the worst arguments, but those who failed to follow sound biblical commands.
Wives were most at risk if their husbands failed to show any signs of warmth in the midst of an argument, while husbands were most at risk if their wives gave even the appearance of trying to wrest control. In other words, the truly damaging arguments were the ones where the apostle Paul's commands—"husbands, love your wives" (Ephesians 5:25) and "wives, submit to your own husbands" (Ephesians 5:22)—were ignored. Apparently these verses are keys to having not only a successful marriage but also a healthy one.
The New York Times article observes, "With so much evidence establishing a link between marital stress and health, a new generation of research is set to explore the ways in which couples can mitigate the damaging effects of relationship stress."
And the researchers will take up that challenge. They'll spend hours and weeks and months quantifying, recording, observing. And some day they'll have all their results prepared in a nice little report detailing the best ways to avoid relationship stress.
You could wait, if you want, for that to happen. But you don't have to. The answers are already available in the same place they've been for thousands of years—the Bible. God's Word is filled with the practical wisdom we need to have fulfilling relationships with everyone from coworkers to our spouse.
Sure, humanity will eventually be able to figure a lot of things out by trial and error, but why go about things the hard way? If these studies have shown anything, it's that God knows what He's talking about. We can take advantage of the wisdom that leads to a successful marriage now and save ourselves a lot of heartache in the process. What are we waiting for?
