This chapter challenged and dissolved several common wisdom, such as “a happy wife is a happy life” and “get married to live longer”. There are also some other interesting findings. For example, it’s the man’s happiness would predict the couple’s later health.
Born in a family where my parents have remained steadily and happily married to each other, I don’t have too much to relate to this chapter especially when I’m still in my 20s. However, I did learn that it’s better to remain critical of the so-called “common wisdoms”. We should tried not to be influenced by what others or the society think or value but to follow our own heart. There are supportive evidence that divorced women who are not remarried have a possibility to live as long as their steadily married counterparts with other necessary social relationship. Married men do live longer but only under the circumstances that they are with a compatible partner in a well-adjusted marriage. It’s found that the longer a man lived in their remarried state, the less important the previous divorce mattered as a threat to their health.
I did find in this chapter an interesting point related to longevity research. To test the effect of marriage on quality of life after married, it’s important to examine the previous histories of those entering marriage. In this study, it’s found that married people tend to be happier than unmarried usually because those people were happy before marriage. And people who were less happy before their marriage tend to get divorced.