"Among the 221.1 million people aged 15 and over in the United States in 2000: • 120.2 million, or 54.4 percent, were now married; • 41.0 million, or 18.5 percent, were widowed, divorced or separated; and • 59.9 million, or 27.1 percent, were never married."

(Source:  Rose M. Kreider and Tavia Simmons, Marital Status: 2000, Census 2000 Brief, C2KBR-30, United States Census Bureau, October 2003; http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-30.pdf.)  

"Marriage, as instituted by God, is a faithful, exclusive, lifelong union of a man and a woman joined in an intimate community of life and love. They commit themselves completely to each other and to the wondrous responsibility of bringing children into the world and caring for them. The call to marriage is woven deeply into the human spirit. Man and woman are equal. However, as created, they are different from but made for each other. This complementarity, including sexual difference, draws them together in a mutually loving union that should be always open to the procreation of children."

(Source: "Between Man and Woman: Questions and Answers About Marriage and Same-Sex Unions," Committee on Marriage and Family Life, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 2003, quoted at Your Catholic Voice, http://www.yourcatholicvoice.org/index.php?id=article&article=492.)

Exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, receive regular medical examinations, avoid tobacco - most American women know much of what they must do to ensure a long life.  However, the life-prolonging effects of a once-central American social institution have escaped the notice of many otherwise knowledgeable women - and this largely because of the misguided activism (ironically enough) of feminists! Though denigrated by feminists as a professional and personal hindrance, wedlock continues to add years to the lives of women who make successful marital unions. 

The life-protecting effects of marriage stand out clearly in a study recently published by a team of epidemiologists from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, San Francisco.  Examining six-year cardiovascular (CVD) and all-cause mortality rates for 7,524 white women age 65 or older, the Pittsburgh and San Francisco analysts looked especially for those social circumstances that predicted or prevented death.  To that end, they ran a series of statistical analyses correlating mortality rates with marital status and with Social Network scores derived from a survey inventory of family and friendship relationships.  In these analyses, "both higher social network scores and marriage at study baseline were potent predictors of lower total and CVD mortality across follow-up."  Underscoring the strength of the linkage between favorable social circumstances and lower mortality rates, the researchers stress that "these benefits were largely independent of demographic variables, pre-existing disease, and other psychosocial measures."

Though the researchers admit that the "mechanisms" that confer longer life on those in more favorable social circumstances remain "poorly understood," they point to research suggesting that strong social ties foster "reduced blood pressure," less pathological "neuroendocrine reactivity under stressful circumstances," and "increased resistance to cold infections."

Progressive modern thinkers might want to suppose that social networks with friends will yield the same, if not superior life-prolonging health effects as marriage.  But the authors of the new study report that "in this sample, marital status - and not social network scores - was the most consistent predictor of subsequent mortality, and marriage explained most - but not all - of the mortality relationships with social network scores."

So do insurance companies charge the members of the anti-wedlock National Organization for Women higher premiums?