“Whether it is my own or my partner’s, psychological distress may impact my quality of life,” said lead researcher Youngmee Kim, director of Family Studies at the American Cancer Society’s Behavioral Research Center in Atlanta.

The physical health of husbands seemed to be especially vulnerable to the poor emotional well-being of their wives."

posted by maggie at 1:33 PM | link

Abstract:
In this paper, we evaluate the impact of unilateral divorce on crime. First, using crime rates from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report program for the period 1965-1998 and differences in the timing in the introduction of the reform, we find that unilateral divorce has a positive impact on violent crime rates, with an 8% to 12% average increase for the period under consideration. Second, arrest data not only confirms the findings of a positive impact on violent crime but also shows that this impact is concentrated among those age groups (15 to 24) that are more likely to engage in these type of offenses. Specifically, for the age group 15-19, we observe an average impact over the period under analysis of 40% and 36% for murder and aggravated assault arrest rates, respectively. Disaggregating total arrest rates by race, we find that the effects are driven by the Black sub-sample. Third, using the age at the time of the divorce law reform as a second source of variation to analyze age-specific arrest rates we confirm the positive impact on the different types of violent crime as well as a positive impact for property crime rates, controlling for all confounding factors that may operate at the state-year, state age or age-year level. The results for murder arrests and for homicide rates (Supplemental Homicide Report) for the 15-24 age groups are robust with respect to specifications and specifically those that include year-state and year-age dummies. The magnitude goes from 15% to 40% depending on the specification and the age at the time of the reform.

posted by Imapp Staff at 12:40 PM | link

"There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage," said Holt-Lunstad, whose findings will be published March 20 in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. "It's not just being married that benefits health - what's really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage." . . .

Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist who studies relationships and health, arranged for 204 married and 99 single adults to wear portable blood pressure monitors, mostly concealed by their clothes, for 24 hours.

The monitors recorded blood pressure at random intervals throughout the day – even while participants slept. Each participant’s blood pressure level was recorded about 72 times.

With the monitors recording blood pressure both day and night, the researchers could see that blood pressure for married adults – especially those happily married – dipped more during sleep than happens with singles.

"Research has shown that people whose blood pressure remains high throughout the night are at much greater risk of cardiovascular problems than people whose blood pressure dips," Holt-Lunstad said.

posted by maggie at 11:35 AM | link

...As Slate's advice columnist, Dear Prudence, I get constant reports from the people who are creating the statistics. When I extol the importance of marriage in the advice column, my inbox fills with e-mails from readers who don't see marriage as the passage from single life to a life of commitment. To them, the marriage certificate is the first document in a paper trail that will end with a divorce decree...

Readers also like to rebuke me for my preference that two decent people who are committed to each other and find themselves procreating without intending to should provide the stability of marriage for their child...[One reader wrote,] "How dare you imply that an unexpected pregnancy should lead to marriage? You are simply out of touch with modern culture."

That may be. But it also means that modern culture is out of touch with the needs of children. Some researchers identify out-of-wedlock births as the chief cause for the increasing stratification and inequality of American life, the first step that casts children into an ever more rigid caste system. Studies have found that children born to single mothers are vastly more likely to be poor, have behavioral and psychological problems, drop out of high school, and themselves go on to have out-of-wedlock children...

[P]erhaps in our desire not to make moral judgments about personal choices, young women wholly unprepared to be mothers are not getting the message that there are dire consequences of having (unprotected) sex with guys too lame to be fathers. There is a scene in the teen pregnancy movie Juno in which the title character, a 16-year-old who has decided not to abort her unplanned baby but to give it up for adoption, is having an ultrasound. The technician, thinking she has on the examining table another knocked-up teenager planning to raise her child, makes disparaging remarks about children born into those circumstances. We are supposed to loathe this character and cheer when Juno's stepmother puts her in her place. But I found myself sympathetic to the technician. Why is it verboten to express the truth that growing up with a lonely, overwhelmed mother and a missing father is a recipe for childhood pain?

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:03 AM | link

Newswise — New research shows that happily married adults have lower blood pressure than singles with supportive social networks, suggesting marriage may literally be a matter of the heart.

[The study found] found that men and women in happy marriages scored four points lower on 24-hour blood pressure than single adults. Having a network of supportive friends did not translate into improved blood pressure for singles or unhappily marrieds...

“There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage,” said [the author of the study] whose findings will be published March 20 in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. “It’s not just being married that benefits health - what’s really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage.”

The study [entitled, “Is There Something Unique about Marriage? The Relative Impact of Marital Status, Relationship Quality, and Network Social Support on Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Mental Health,”] also found, unsurprisingly, that unhappily married adults have higher blood pressure than both happily married and single adults...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:41 AM | link

The Greek Orthodox Church has expressed opposition to plans by the Athens government to give greater rights to unmarried couples...

The government proposes to give common-law couples the same rights as those who have gone through legal or religious ceremonies.

It wants to harmonise Greek law to European standards.

The new law would allow unmarried couples to make their relationship legally binding, by signing a simple notarial contract...

The Church's governing synod said it considered all common-law marriages to be tantamount to "prostitution"...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:23 AM | link

With gay marriage a no-go this year, Maryland senators voted today to allow unmarried couples more rights to make medical decisions for each other.

The Senate voted 30-17 to allow domestic partners, who could be gay or straight, to make medical or funeral decisions for each other if they meet certain criteria to show they are a committed couple...

The measure now heads to the House...

posted by Imapp Staff at 11:23 AM | link

ALBANY — In an extraordinary news conference on his first full day on the job, Gov. David A. Paterson acknowledged on Tuesday that he had had several extramarital relationships, including one with a state employee, but said he had done nothing illegal and had been faithful to his wife in recent years.

Mr. Paterson said he made the disclosure because he wanted to clear his conscience and avoid being blackmailed. He said he hoped his openness about his past affairs would help him to gain the trust of New Yorkers and move forward to focus on governing...

Mr. Paterson’s revelation comes less than a week after Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a prostitute, resigned, and a former governor of New Jersey, James E. McGreevey, and his estranged wife publicly traded claims about the nature of their sex life together...

Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican majority leader, said the Patersons’ marital problems were nobody’s business but their own, as he brushed off suggestions that the affair threatened to interfere with the state’s business...

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:52 AM | link

The Senate again is set to take up common-law marriage when it convenes today, and by some accounts, the centuries-old S.C. tradition is hanging on by a thread.

Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Horry, is on a three-week filibuster of a House-passed bill that, with Senate approval and the governor’s signature, would end recognition of marriages that are forged on intent, rather than a state license.

The measure has provisions that would give residents a grace period to legitimize their relationships via a state license, and also call for a state effort to educate the public that common-law marriages would no longer be recognized...

“We have the votes to pass this,” said [rules Committee chairman] Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens , “if we can get him (Rankin) to sit down.”...

South Carolina is one of only 10 states in the U.S. that still recognize common-law marriage.

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:41 AM | link

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A state Senate committee has passed a proposal to amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriage and civil unions.

The Judiciary Committee approved it Tuesday, 10-4...

A constitutional amendment requires approval from both legislative chambers in two consecutive two-year sessions and ultimate approval in a statewide referendum.

posted by Imapp Staff at 2:55 PM | link

...[L]ike all movies now, DEFINITELY MAYBE takes place in the routine-divorce culture. That can’t not affect the romantic comedy genre, and I alluded to one of the ways here last year. But still, never have I seen in a conventional romantic-comedy, a child spend the movie’s last reel trying to get her father back together — not with her mother — but an old girlfriend whom the child had never met.And not because the mother is abusive or somehow “out of the picture.” Now, we so consider divorce so routine (a reason for the one in this movie is never even hinted at, as if there’s no need) that we consider it an acceptable fantasy for a child of divorce not to express not the natural wish about her parents, but about a step-parent. If there’s been a conventional romantic-comedy with that rather self-rationalizing-for-adults premise (”it’s what the kids WANT”) — I’m unaware of it.

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:24 AM | link

JACKSON - Both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature have passed bills dealing with marriage. But other than both having the word marriage in them - the bills have little in common.

The Senate passed new legislation that would create what are referred to as covenant marriages that would be harder to enter and to exit than a normal Mississippi marriage.

The House, as it has in recent sessions, has passed legislation to eliminate the three-day wait to get married.

The House now is considering the Senate covenant marriage proposal and the Senate is considering the House's proposal to eliminate the wait to get married.

It appears those two marriage proposals will survive until the end of the session and, most likely, could be among the final issues settled during the 2008 session, which is slated to end April 19...

Currently, three states - Arkansas, Louisiana and Arizona - have covenant marriage...

26 states, including the District of Columbia, have a waiting period to get married...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:15 AM | link

St. Joseph [Missouri] — A lesbian married in Massachusetts has filed for an annulment from her partner in Missouri, a state that does not recognize same-sex marriage.

...The two women were married in Boston three years ago, less than a year after Massachusetts became the first — and only — state to legalized same-sex unions.

[The Judge] said he has taken the matter into consideration and is treating it as an annulment, not a divorce. He has scheduled a hearing for April 2.

The case could have future ramifications, possibly setting a precedent for same-sex cases in Missouri. The state overwhelmingly voted four years ago to limit marriage to unions between one man and one woman.

It's not the first time a gay couple has tried to dissolve a marriage performed in another state.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled in December that a lesbian couple married in nearby Massachusetts could not get a divorce in their home state...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:01 AM | link

MONTPELIER - A woman involved in a high-profile custody dispute welcomed a Vermont Supreme Court ruling yesterday upholding her visitation rights to a child her former lesbian partner had when they were together...

After hearing an appeal from [the girl’s biological mother] on Thursday, a three-judge panel ruled yesterday that it had no reason to reexamine the case...

A lawyer for [the girl’s biological mother] argued that the full court's 2006 decision in the case [allowing visitation fights to her former partner] was wrong because Virginia law prohibits civil unions and same-sex marriage, so [her former partner] has no legal standing as a parent...

But Vermont's high court disagreed, saying there was no basis to revisit challenges to the civil union. "Moreover plaintiff's argument that the interests of justice compel foregoing the doctrine in this instance because a young child is being forced into contact with a stranger is nothing short of disingenuous in light of the family court's unchallenged findings regarding the child's best interest and plaintiff's contemptuous conduct," the three justices said...

posted by Imapp Staff at 11:46 AM | link

A measure that would amend Pennsylvania's Constitution to define marriage between a man and a woman is before the state's Senate Judiciary Committee with a public hearing being held today and a vote scheduled for tomorrow...

The marriage amendment, known as S.B. 1250, reads, "No union other than a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage or the functional equivalent of marriage by the Commonwealth." If the state Constitution is successfully amended, judicial attempts to re-define marriage would be frustrated...

"Polling has been done for Pennsylvania for Marriage and 72 percent of the people want to be able to decide this issue, not have the courts do it for them," stated [a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania for Marriage, a group supporting the amendment.]...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:33 AM | link

...[T]he Connecticut Supreme Court is expected to rule soon [on a case that] presents a new constitutional challenge to the political compromise that several states have made in recent years to grant rights to gay and lesbian couples while preserving the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and woman. At the same time, the state legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee has scheduled a public hearing in Hartford on Monday to consider amending the civil union law in light of complaints from same-sex couples that the measure had not delivered the equal rights it had promised. The committee passed a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage, 27-15, last year, but it was never put to a full vote of the legislature...

Connecticut created civil unions in 2005, promising same-sex couples all the “rights, protections and responsibilities” the state bestows upon married couples, rather than the patchwork some municipalities had stitched together. The law also included a clause, inserted at the insistence of Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, that defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, joining at least 40 states with similar language in their laws.

But eight same-sex couples pressed ahead with a constitutional challenge, arguing that they were entitled to marry the person of their choice and that nothing less would do...

In July 2006, [a] lower court judge...backed the state, ruling that Connecticut’s Constitution “requires there be equal protection and due process of law, not that there be equivalent nomenclature.”...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:17 AM | link