Every time I learn about a new claim that getting married makes people happier or healthier or more connected or live longer (and all the rest), I go to the original research report to see what the findings really did say. The media — and sadly, many social scientists — routinely get it wrong. No, getting married does not cause you to become lastingly happier or healthier or better off in any way than if you stayed single (well, you do get more money because of all the laws and practices that benefit married people and discriminate against singles).
Here (below), you can find links to all my critiques of these studies. I’ll keep adding more as new claims hit the media that I need to debunk. I’ve also put together 2 books of my writings explaining why all those Marriage Wins claims are so wrong. Marriage vs. Single Life: How Science and the Media Got It So Wrong includes a chapter previously available only in an expensive edited volume, a new paper that is the most powerful and comprehensive explanation of what the research does and does not show about the implications of getting married, plus 39 other brief chapters (many from my blogs). Because I think that new powerful and comprehensive paper is so important, I have made it into a stand-alone book (together with an introduction) in The Science of Marriage: What We Know That Just Isn’t So. (Both are available both as paperbacks and as ebooks. You can read more about them here.) My first book, Singled Out, also includes discussions and explanations of what’s wrong with the claims of married people’s superiority.
Below are collections of links critiquing myths about getting married and getting happier, healthier, etc. (Also check out, “Everything you think you know about single people is wrong.”) Under “Other Topics” (below) you can find collections of writings on all sorts of aspects of single life. I also discuss single people and single life in many of my books, such as Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century, The Best of Single Life, Alone: The badass psychology of people who like being alone, and others you can find here.
Myth-Busting about Single Life
HAPPINESS On getting married and (not) getting happier: What we know
PHYSICAL HEALTH and MENTAL HEALTH Getting married and (not) getting healthy
LONGEVITY Debunking the myth that married people live longer
RELATIONSHIPS, ATTACHMENT, CAREGIVING, VOLUNTEERING Single people are caring, connected, attached, and unselfish
SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES Single parents and their children: Don’t believe the prophesies of doom
NO CHILDREN Adults with no kids: Naming, shaming, and talking back to the shaming
SEX Getting married and (not) getting sex (and other sex-relevant topics)
MONEY Getting married and getting more money (and other articles about the economics of single life)
COLLECTION OF CRITIQUES What’s wrong with studies and claims about the supposed benefits of marriage?
Other Topics
How we live now
21 century living arrangements
The best of single life
The real reasons for living single
The Community of Single People
The benefits of being single — for single people and for society
Some basics about single life
Demographics (number of singles, age when people marry, rates of divorce and remarriage, etc., and what it all means)
Defining single and naming different categories of singles
Personalities and types of single people
Gender differences (in living single, marrying, divorcing, remarrying, bereavement, living alone, and living apart together)
Single men (separate category because so much writing about singles is about single women)
Divorce, widowhood, remarriage
Singlism and matrimania, and why we need advocacy for single people
People deny singlism exists and get mad at you for pointing it out. Why?
Singles advocacy and the issue of privilege
How singles are celebrated and stereotyped and shamed
Singles in different domains and different places
Religions and places of worship
Advertising, marketing, and business
Psychotherapy and mental health
Housing (buying homes, housing discrimination, living arrangements)
The military and foreign service
Popular culture and beyond (TV, movies, magazines, literature, the arts, opera, etc.)
Celebrities, world figures, and people in politics and the media
We need to rethink these matters
Relationships, family, and love
Living single during a pandemic
Holidays (including single people’s celebrations of the milestones in their lives)
Marriage (including marrying yourself)
Resources: Books, talks, discussion groups, advocacy groups and more
Books about single life: Reviews and discussions
Blogs about single people and single life
Best TED talks and other talks for single people
Totally off-topic
Here’s what I know about lying and detecting lies
A Few Books about Single Life
For links to all of my books, click here.
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