The concept that married people live longer is interesting. I'm sure there is some merit to the idea that if you're married there is someone there to nag you about going to the doctor, but I think much larger factors are having the finances of dual incomes and access to an immediate support person.
Surgeries require having a designated person to look after you. Many injuries require driving to somewhere like an emergency room which can be hard to do if you are the one injured. If you're home with the flu, it's hard to tell when it's bad enough to go to the hospital without another person checking on you. And if you pass out it requires another person to find you like that to get medical aid.
You can prop it up as the benefits of marriage, but I think there's a much deeper discussion to be had about how we've built society around marriage as an inevitable conclusion and neglected to build support systems that function outside of romantic pairings.
One time in college I got super sick and didn't even have the energy to open a bottle of Gatorade. I legit sat in my dorm room crying because I couldn't open that bottle and it was the middle of the day so no one was around. And all I could think was "If I had a husband he could open this for me."
So thank you @mrtobenamedlater for being my designated Gatorade opener.
Been seeing this post around more and thinking about it.
Not that long ago—well under a century—we DID have support systems outside of marriage. Most adults lived close to their families of origin. You had relatively easy access to your parents and siblings. Speaking of siblings, you probably had 3-5 of them. Your parents were still married. You also had a local network of extended family. You likely attended church and were involved in other civic organizations. All of these foster support systems. Most people were married, and marriage is an important primary support, but it was far from the only one.
In 2026? You live hundreds or thousands of miles away from your parents. If you have siblings, you only have one or two, and they live hundreds or thousands of miles away too. Your parents are more likely to be divorced or never married. You are more likely to be estranged from at least one family member. You are less likely to be religious. There’s a not insignificant chance you work remotely and never see your coworkers in person. Third spaces increasingly don’t exist or only exist online. It’s become incredibly easy to live your entire life with no real human connection.
In this landscape, you have almost no option but for your spouse to be your sole support. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to find a spouse. When you do find a spouse, you both work full time which leaves less time for religious or civic or any engagement outside of your jobs.
We stopped getting married, stopped having children, started moving across the country or even the world to pursue employment, stopped going to church, stopped doing all the things that forced us to interact with other human beings who would eventually become our support networks. We didn’t neglect to build support systems outside of romantic partners. We HAD them, and we dismantled them, and now we have to live with the consequences.
