婚姻并不是通往更健康的门票

毕竟，婚姻并不是通往更健康的门票

Times change — and people change with them. Which is why it's important that we revisit conventional wisdom, the stuff we think we know. For example, being single now is a different experience today than it was in the past.

时代在变，人也在变。这就是为什么我们需要重新审视传统智慧，那些我们自以为知道的东西。例如，现在单身和过去相比是一种不同的体验。

Having a wedding ring doesn't mean a life of good health. (Photo: Leon Rafael/Shutterstock)

Today, a much greater percentage of the population is single, and even those people who do eventually cohabit and/or marry will spend a greater part of their lives on their own. At the same time, the nature of work has changed for many, and the concept of community has also shifted. My community includes childhood friends located 3,000 miles away who I text several times a week; people I see weekly at yoga class; and editors and fellow writers who I chat with daily on Facebook or via email. Only one of the things on my list is similar to what someone would have qualified as community 40 years ago.

如今，单身人口的比例要大得多，即使是那些最终同居或结婚的人，也会花更多的时间独自生活。与此同时，许多人的工作性质发生了变化，社区的概念也发生了变化。我的社区里有远在3000英里之外的儿时好友，我每周都会给他们发几次短信;我每周在瑜伽课上见到的人;还有我每天在Facebook或通过电子邮件与之聊天的编辑和其他作家。在我的清单上，只有一件事是类似于40年前的社区。

When how we live changes this much, that impacts other parts of our lives. For example, while research from the 1960s and 1970s showed correlations between better health (especially for men) and marriage, more recent studies show something different. That doesn't mean those older studies were necessarily wrong, it might just mean that singlehood and marriage have changed alongside other cultural mores, so it would make sense that their effects on health did, too.

当我们的生活方式发生如此大的变化时，就会影响到我们生活的其他方面。例如，虽然20世纪60年代和70年代的研究表明，更健康(尤其是男性)和婚姻之间存在相关性，但最近的研究显示出一些不同的东西。这并不意味着那些老的研究一定是错误的，它可能只是意味着单身和婚姻随着其他文化习俗的改变而改变，所以它们对健康的影响也是有道理的。

In a 2019 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers looked at seven different benchmarks of well-being. They found that people in relationships were better off than single people in only one way. People who were in relationships were better off only when they reported that those relationships were exceptional. Being single, they found, was better than being in a "neutral" relationship.

在2019年发表在《个性与社会心理学通报》上的一项研究中，研究人员考察了七个不同的幸福感基准。他们发现，有伴侣的人在某一方面比单身的人过得更好。处于恋爱关系中的人只有在报告恋爱关系是例外的情况下才会过得更好。他们发现，单身比“中性”关系要好。

A Swiss study found that marriage might even have negative health effects: In analyzing the effects of 16 years of data, they found a "very small" uptick in health protection among married people, but that was obliterated by the three times stronger negative health impact of divorce. Overall, the scientists wrote that their findings about marriage and its relationship to health, "...cast doubts about the theory of health protection."

瑞士的一项研究发现，婚姻甚至可能对健康产生负面影响:在分析16年数据的影响时，他们发现，已婚人士在健康保护方面出现了“非常小”的上升，但这被离婚对健康产生的3倍于前者的负面影响所抵消。总的来说，科学家们写道，他们关于婚姻及其与健康关系的发现，“……对健康保护的理论提出质疑。”

Positive effects of being single

单身的积极影响

Single people are typically more active and spend more time in the community volunteering. (Photo: Syda Productions/Shutterstock)

Marriage is still highly rewarded in our culture (not just during and following a wedding, but by the government via tax breaks and other perks like free or low-cost health care for wives or husbands). Most people still see marriage as a goal that's part of being an adult. This leads to a sometimes-subtle effect: Unmarried people are looked down on, and they may question their happiness. Conversely, married people might assume they must be happy because they're filling a socially prescribed role. That cultural bias could explain some of the modest effects found between marriage and personal happiness. Most people feel good about themselves when they fulfill others' ideas of how they should live. Or it could be that happier people tend to marry, not that marriage causes happiness.

在我们的文化中，婚姻仍然是高回报的(不仅是在婚礼期间和之后，而且通过税收减免和其他津贴，如为妻子或丈夫提供免费或低成本的医疗保健等，来实现)。大多数人仍然认为婚姻是成年人的目标。这就导致了一种有时很微妙的影响:未婚的人被瞧不起，他们可能会质疑自己的幸福。相反，已婚人士可能会认为他们一定很幸福，因为他们扮演着社会规定的角色。这种文化偏见可以解释婚姻和个人幸福之间的一些适度影响。大多数人在实现了别人对他们应该如何生活的想法后，会自我感觉良好。也可能是更幸福的人倾向于结婚，而不是婚姻带来幸福。

In my mind, this data all points to at least one solid conclusion: That one relationship style isn't right for everyone — some people will probably be happier and healthier being married, while others are better off on their own. There's no good reason for all of us to follow the same life script anymore; we live in a wonderful time that allows us to make the choices that are truly the best for us, which sounds like a healthy way to live.

在我看来，这些数据都指向了至少一个可靠的结论:一种恋爱方式并不适合所有人——有些人结婚后可能会更快乐、更健康，而有些人则不会过得更好。我们没有理由再遵循同样的人生剧本;我们生活在一个美好的时代，我们可以做出对自己最好的选择，这听起来是一种健康的生活方式。