Married couples live longer and enjoy better health, according to the Office for National Statistics…

Wives with children are also the healthiest of their gender, a sharp contrast to single mothers who have a greater chance of developing a long-term illness.

The ONS analysis also indicates marriage can lead to better care for couples when they are older in comparison to their single or co-habiting peers.

Well-being is less likely for those who are not married as the figures imply bad relationships and separations are linked to poor health.

In particular, single, divorced and widowed older women have higher mortality rates than those who are married…

In addition, children whose parents live together but are not married are more likely to get poorer results at school, abandon education earlier and develop a serious illness…

Mike Murphy, professor at the London School of Economics and one of the research authors, said: "Some of the benefits of marriage can be explained by wealth, as the marriage rate is higher in higher socio-economic groups.

"But the evidence shows there is something in marriage itself that is a benefit."

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Indonesia's top court ruled Wednesday against a businessman who filed a lawsuit arguing that the marriage law was unconstitutional because it prohibited him from wedding multiple partners.

Islamic teachings allow men to take up to four wives, but in the world's most populous Muslim nation polygamous marriages are only recognized by religious authorities and do not grant legal inheritance and parenting rights to all wives.

The Constitutional Court said it threw out a claim that the nation's marriage act violated the constitutional protection of religious freedoms and should be amended…

Polygamy has become increasingly accepted in Indonesia since the downfall in 1998 of former dictator Suharto who temporarily outlawed it, but the debate remains sensitive, pitting religious leaders against women's rights activists…

Domestic partners have the same right as husbands and wives to accept or inherit real estate from one another without big property tax increase, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday [link to decision].

In a victory for same-sex couples, the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento upheld regulations approved by the state Board of Equalization in 2003 and a law passed by the Legislature in 2005 that gave registered domestic partners the same tax break as spouses under Proposition 13…

Prop. 13, a 1978 initiative, rolled back property taxes to 1 percent of the property value and limited increases to 2 percent per year. Property can still be reassessed to full market value when it is sold or changes owners, leading to a substantial tax increase. But Prop. 13 didn't define changes in ownership.

A 1979 law and subsequent ballot measure provided that transfers of property between husbands and wives at death or divorce, and transfers to children or grandchildren, would not be considered ownership changes and were thus protected from tax increases.

The Board of Equalization's rules, later broadened by the Legislature, extended the same exemption to registered domestic partners, a category that includes same-sex couples of any age and unmarried opposite-sex couples in which at least one partner is 62 or older.

The change was part of a series of laws and regulations designed to give domestic partners the same rights under California law as married couples, without establishing same-sex marriage. A challenge to the state's exclusion of gays and lesbians from marriage is pending before the state Supreme Court…

…Women sleep less soundly when they share a bed with a romantic partner, a study published this month in Sleep and Biological Rhythms found. Surprisingly, men actually sleep better when they sleep next to a woman…

The researchers speculated that women's fretful sleep might be caused by brain wiring differences between men and women. Women tend to be lighter sleepers because they historically have been the ones caring for infants, the researchers suggested…

Psychologist Wendy Troxel isn’t surprised to see that men do better when sleeping in a shared bed. Studies have shown that men are very dependent on close relationships — contrary to popular stereotypes, says Troxel, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied how the quality of a relationship affects overall health and sleep in men and women.

In general, men show much clearer benefits from committed relationships, Troxel says. “My research shows that married men are much happier and healthier than unmarried men," she adds. “The findings are much less consistent with women.”…

…A study of nearly 4,000 men and women from Framingham, Mass., asked whether they typically vented their feelings or kept quiet in arguments with their spouse. Notably, 32 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women said they typically bottled up their feelings during a marital spat.

In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt, according to the July report in Psychosomatic Medicine. Whether the woman reported being in a happy marriage or an unhappy marriage didn’t change her risk…

The emotional tone that men and women take during arguments with a spouse can also take a toll on their health…

For women, whether a husband’s arguing style was warm or hostile had the biggest effect on her heart health…[A] warm style of arguing by either spouse lowered the wife’s risk of heart disease.

But…[t]he level of warmth or hostility had no effect on a man’s heart health. For a man, heart risk increased if disagreements with his wife involved a battle for control…

"Facts and True Facts: More on Divorce
Justin Wolfers
My initial guest post noted that recent divorce statistics were misinterpreted widely in both the media, and by the academics interviewed by the press. The question is what went wrong with the latest data?

First, some necessary background. This table was published by the Census Bureau counting the proportion of those who had wed in each year who subsequently celebrated various anniversaries. Here’s a quick test: Look at the data, and decide for yourself what is happening to marital stability. Or if you are lazier, let me help with an example: the Census reported that 76.4% of men whose first wedding occurred in 1985-89 had celebrated a tenth anniversary; this declined rather dramatically to 70.0% among those who marrying in 1990-94. By jingo, it looks like recent marriages have become much less stable!

Not so fast. The marital history data were collected from July-September 2004, and hence those who had married in, say, October 1994, simply could not have reached their tenth anniversary by the survey date. Because this affected around one-in-ten of those wed from 1990-94, this statistical factor alone explains what looked like a decline in marital stability.

How do we interpret what happened?

The Census Bureau reported true and useful facts: The data are interesting, and the table includes a small footnote, noting “Approximately 10 percent of the cohort has not reached the stated age by the end of the latest specified time period. Because of this, estimates for this group for the highest anniversary are low.” With this qualification, one should not conclude that divorce is rising. (But what should one conclude? No guidance is given.)

The Census Bureau reported true, but useless facts: The tables measure exactly what it says it measures. The Census Bureau is like Fox news: We report, you decide. And we report, even if the number we report is meaningless.

The Census Bureau reported misleading facts: It is obvious that a qualifying footnote will be ignored by most. Indeed, the New York Times printed the table but omitted the footnote. But let’s not be too harsh on the NY Times: I talked about these data with several excellent economists, and none even noticed the footnote. Headline numbers deserve headline qualifications.

The survey was flawed: If the Census is interested in measuring the survival of a set of marriages to their tenth anniversary, then failing to wait ten years after a wedding to measure this is a surveying glitch.

So what is the mission of a statistical agency? If the Census’ job is to just report back what we (the surveyed population) tell them, then they performed that task adequately. If their job is to report parameters – useful facts – then they failed miserably, as the data they reported are hopeless biased indicators of marital stability. Alternatively, the question is: Does the Census provide facts, or interpretation? I’m happy if they present only facts and leave the interpretation to experts. But is there an obligation to report only interpretable facts?

Stephen Colbert’s term “truthiness”, the reigning word of the year, refers to what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are. I’m wondering, what is the right word is for something that is a fact but isn’t true? Untruthiness, anyone?"

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson should expect intense scrutiny of his gay-marriage position from Iowa's social conservatives as he resumes his campaign for the state's leadoff caucuses today.

His proposal to limit judges' power is unique among the 2008 GOP field and at odds with Iowa's Christian right, which sees a simple constitutional ban as a crucial litmus test.

Constitutional scholars call Thompson's two-part alternative amendment ground-breaking and pragmatic, if confusing and politically unrealistic.

"This would be a very strange constitutional amendment, unlike any other on record," said Donald Downs, a University of Wisconsin constitutional law professor.

Thompson has discussed an amendment that would bar a judge in one state from recognizing a court ruling from another state allowing gay marriage…

In other words, Thompson supports exempting gay marriage from Article IV of the Constitution, which says "full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.

"Thompson's two-part amendment proposal would also block a judge from declaring gay marriage legal in states where there is no law recognizing gay marriage…

Thompson's proposal mirrors key provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, enacted in 1996 with Thompson's support. The constitutional amendment he describes would make those provisions irreversible.

Most of the Republican presidential candidates have said they support a constitutional ban on gay marriage…

THE great myth about divorce is that marital breakup is an increasing threat to American families, with each generation finding their marriages less stable than those of their parents.

Last week’s release of new divorce statistics led to a smorgasbord of reporting feeding the myth...

[This] story of ever-increasing divorce is a powerful narrative. It is also wrong. In fact, the divorce rate has been falling continuously over the past quarter-century, and is now at its lowest level since 1970….

Why were so many analysts led astray by the recent data?...

The census data come from a survey conducted in mid-2004, and at that time, it had not yet been 25 years since the wedding day of around 1 in 10 of those whose marriages they surveyed….

If the census survey had been conducted six months later, it would have found that a majority of those married in the second half of 1979 were happily moving into their 26th year of marriage. Once these marriages are added to the mix, it turns out that a majority of couples who tied the knot from 1975 to 1979 — about 53 percent — reached their silver anniversary….

[F]actoring in an appropriate adjustment yields the conclusion that divorce rates have been falling, not rising…