annoyedThe article Depressed? Marriage May Help, Study Says describes how getting married can lessen depression to a degree. Not by a lot, and hey, they're not completely sure what's up with the depression exactly, but dammit, it lessens it when you're married! If you don't get married YOU WILL DIE ALONE AND EARLY.
Never mind the fact that they didn't take into account people in cohabitating relationships that never marry. Or, the biggie here, that a lot of women become less happy when they get hitched. As I've said before, marriage increases men's happiness*. And hey, it may very well decrease their depression. But it's annoying to see that they didn't even take gender into account here. I would've been very interested to see what the results would've been if they had.
It's particularly annoying today, as I also ready this article: Stressed Out? Grab Hubby's Hand. Oh sure, they say "Hubby" in the title, but this article is all about how women lessen their stress by holding hands with someone. Anyone. Some smelly guy on the street? Yup, his hand will do the trick, just not as potently as a S.O.
They never once mention men's stress levels to said holding-hands. They bring up that as children, we hold hands with people and it gives us warm and fuzzies as a psychological reason... but gee, doesn't that go for BOTH genders? But then again, women are the emotional ones, right? Men don't receive emotional responses because they have a penis. Riiiiight.
I just love how gender is manipulated in both cases.
* No, I'm not saying that all married women are hating life. Women can be happy in marriage. Marriage can be hugs and puppies! All I'm saying is, statistics show an increase in happiness with men when they get married and a decrease in happiness for women when they get married. Not everyone fits into a statistic.
