The “Ideology of Marriage and Family” and Its Invisible Hand on a

Demographic Study of Sex, Marital Status, and Mortality

By Linus Van Plata

30 November 2019

In an article for the ​American Journal of Sociology titled “Sex, Marital Status, and Mortality,”
Gove (1973) analyzed the relationship between marital status and mortality among white men
and women primarily aged 25-65 in the United States, based on data from 1951-61 provided by
the National Center for Health Statistics (1970). Suggesting that this could be the first study in
the sociological literature to look into the differences of death rates for both sexes across
various marital statuses, except works on sucide such as the 1897 classic one by Durkheim
(1951), Gove concluded that “the married have lower mortality rates than the unmarried and the
differences between being married and being single, widowed, or divorced are greater for men
than for women” (p. 65). This article review walks through and offers a critique of Gove’s
findings that led to his conclusion, as well as interjects with a few relevant studies that emerged
in the next several decades, properly locating his work in the history of social studies on marital
state and death.

Gove (1973) draws on available data on psychological well-being and mental illness to serve as
anchor for his research argument. He makes parallels between these data and his own major
findings. In the case of psychological well-being, he invokes Gurin, Veroff, and Feld (1960),
Bradburn and Caplovitz (1965), and Bradburn (1969) to point out that married people reported a
happier state of being that the unmarried. Meanwhile, in terms of mental illness, the married
turned out to have better mental health than the single, widowed, and divorced (Gove, 1972).
But the probable reason why this was so, according to Gove (1973) himself and Gurin et al.
(1960, pp. 230-31), why there seemed to be a “key difference between the roles of the married
and the unmarried (whether single, widowed, or divorced) is that the unmarried live a relatively
isolated existence which lacks the close interpersonal ties that the data suggest are a key factor
in maintaining a sense of well-being.”

While it has been accepted among social scientists since Durkheim that interpersonal ties are
closely associated with health and well-being (Waite, 2009), the assumption that “the unmarried
live a relatively isolated existence” can be challenged. Since Grove was primarily concerned
with whites aged 25 to 65, then it is reasonable to assume that, for one, not every unmarried
person in the second half of his or her 20s necessarily lived in relative isolation. Some of them
might still be dwelling with their parents and siblings, and without having to feel lonely and
dissatisfied in such arrangement (although possibly, with some pressure to move out). Another
counterpoint is the possibility that there were unmarried individuals who might have had closer
social ties with others than some married couples did. In short, Gove’s traditional presupposition
that there is a “key difference between the roles” of the married and unmarried, that there is in
fact “roles” apparently inherent to and expected of the married and the single life, must allow for
exceptions. Indeed, it must stop serving as a reliable presupposition in sociological research.

While the social milieu of America from 1951 to 1961—the years from which Gove’s data were
taken via the National Center for Health Statistics—was very different from that of the advent of
the 21st century, a recent study has, in principle, debunked his premise of the unmarried living
in relative seclusion. In their study called “Marriage: The Good, the Bad, and the Greedy,”
Gerstel and Sarkisian (2006) used two U.S. national surveys, the 1992–94 National Survey of
Families and Households and the 2004 General Social Survey, to explore the relationship
between marital statuses (i.e., never married, currently married, and formerly married) and ties
to relatives and friends. The authors found out that that compared to single people, married
couples spent less quality time with relatives, neighbors, and friends. They were also less likely
to offer emotional support and practical help as well. Gerstel and Sarkisian put it this way: “As
they go off on their honeymoon adventure, the starry-eyed couple is supposed to leave all the
other loved ones behind—the first step toward communal withdrawal” (p. 20). In other words,
singles can be more involved in their various relationships.

It could still be the case, however, that America in the 1950s induced more social isolation
among the unmarried. Cohen (2014), using data from the U.S. Census as compiled by
IPUMS.org, found that it was the period between 1950 and 1960 when the traditional
married-couple family peaked and was characteristic of two-thirds of households. He also saw
the same period as the height of the nuclear family as against the extended type. The
dominance and prominence of this traditional married-couple and nuclear family was very likely
to have fostered what DePaulo and Morris (2005) term as the “Ideology of Marriage and
Family.” This ideology is underpinned by three basic assumptions: (a) nearly everyone wants
marriage and nearly everyone also ends up getting married; (b) sexual partnership (i.e., “a
serious sex-linked relationship”) is the best peer relationship; and (c) those in a sexual
partnership are better people and have probably better lives. While not necessarily false, these
assumptions, argued DePaulo and Morris, have remained mostly unnoticed and unchallenged,
instead of being put to an impartial test. They warned that when a line of research appeared to
test one of those assumptions, “the ideology’s invisible hand is still shaping the science” (p. 58).

This ideology is reflected in Gove’s focus on the size of coefficients from the ratios (single
mortality rate)/(married mortality rate), (widowed mortality rate)/(married mortality rate), and
(divorced mortality rate)/(married mortality rate). Gove noted that these coefficients were the
same ones used by Durkheim (1951) in his classic study on suicide, the latter calling it the
coefficient of preservation. An assumption about marriage, according to Gove, is implicit in the
term “coefficient of preservation” and explicit in Durkheim’s analysis: that “marriage, through its
strong social ties, provides a person with a sense of meaning and importance, thereby serving
to inhibit the destructive impulses associated with suicide” (p. 47-48). Gerstel and Sarkisian
(2006) summarize the criticisms that challenge Durkheim and Glove’s assumption:

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 Critics point out that only marriages with low levels of hostility and conflict offer the health
benefits touted by advocates. In contrast, bad marriages are hazardous to mental and
physical health, increasing suicide, stress, cancer, and blood pressure—and even
slowing the healing of wounds. Critics point out that lots of marriages involve conflict and
hostility, and many deteriorate over time. This debate generally focuses “inward”—both
proponents and critics discuss marriage’s benefits and costs for the wives, husbands,
and children. But the full effects of marriage include social consequences for kin ties and
community life. (Gerstel and Sarkisian, 2006, p. 17)

Moreover, Gove (1973) resorted to implausible conjectures to justify the higher mortality rate of
single people due to accident and homicide:

Regarding accidental death, I postulate that a lack of close interpersonal ties frequently
results in carelessness and even recklessness which may lead to death. In the case of
homicide I assume that in many instances persons who are murdered have to some
degree precipitated the act by their behavior and that this behavior frequently reflects
frustration and dissatisfaction with life. Just as with accidental death, it is probably also
the case that recklessness increases the likelihood of being murdered. (Gove, 1973, pp.
49-50)

The word “accident,” as defined by Merriam-Webster (2019) in its legal sense, as “an
unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the
part of the person injured but for which legal relief may be sought.” In so far as conditions that
precipitate into accidents are beyond the control of the victim, and hence have little or nothing to
do with his or her degree of interpersonal ties, then Gove’s attempt to explain why more singles
than married people seem to die from accidents is futile. This argument also applies to deaths
by homicide and murder: factors that lead to killing another person appear too complex to
conveniently single out the possibilty that it has to do with the victim’s behavior, his or her
“frustration and dissatisfaction with life,” and, at least according to Gove’s line of argument, his
or her marital status.

With these examples, the “Ideology of Marriage and Family” as conceived by DePaulo and
Morris might have had its “invisible hand” shape the science behind Gove’s (1973) study, such
as by shaping its problematic assumption that single people relatively live isolated lives, that
marriage imputes to married couples a sense of meaning and importance, and that singletons
are more likely to fall prey to the vagaries of accident, homicide, and murder. Ergo, singles tend
more to endanger their well-being and to be mentally ill, thereby increasing their chances of
mortality. This is not to outrightly reject Gove’s cited data that singles—including the widowed
and divorced, albeit to a lesser degree—have higher rates of mental illness and fewer reports of
well-being than the married. But lumping the diversity of singletons into one demographic group
is a methodological error that fails to give proper treatment to the nuances and complexities of
different single lives.

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This error is manifest in the following findings in Grove’s study, which breaks down the
relationship between marital status and mortality according to the specific cause of death, and
which actually reveals a few exceptions favoring the single group:

(a) single men are twice as likely to commit suicide as married men, while single women are
51% more likely to take their own life than their married counterparts;

(b) single women die less than married women due to homicide, with both sexes who become
widowed increasing their chances of being murdered;

(c) more singles than married people die from accident;

(d) single men are 3.3 times more likely than married men to die of liver cirrhosis, while single
women show the same pattern but with a slight difference, although older single women
reverses this pattern as they show lower mortality rates;

(e) singles are less likely than the married to smoke but have a higher mortality rate caused by
lung cancer;

(f) singles are more likely to die of tuberculosis and diabetes than their married counterparts;
and

(g) there is very little relationship between marital status and mortality due to leukemia and
aleukimia partly because emotional states are irrelevant to the etiology of these disorders.

All these causes considered, Gove (1973) summarized that the “unmarried have, controlling for
age, noticeably higher mortality rates than the married, with the differences being significantly
greater for men than for women” (p. 59). He presented this in Table 11 of his paper, which is
also found below:

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 (This image is courtesy of Gove, 1973, Table 11, p. 59)

Gove’s age bracket of primary concern for his study of martial status, sex, and mortality—25 to
64—is represented in the rightmost column of the above table. All the ratios in this column,
which are greater than one, indicate that the mortality rates of the unmarried, whether single,
widowed, or divorced, are higher than those of the married. But there are differences between
the sexes within each of the three subgroups of the unmarried. While unmarried men have
higher mortality rates than unmarried women across the three subgroups, the widowed have a
wider gender discrepancy than the singles, and the divorced have way bigger discrepancy than
the widowed. Still, this is not a sufficient categorization of the unmarried to perform a more
accurate study of single lives and their effect on mortality. Further balkanization of single
lives—for instance, singles who report finding more satisfaction in being unpartnered and living
alone vis-à-vis singles who report otherwise—has to be performed in future singles studies. A
more reliable comparison is to be made between this more systematic classification of the
unmarried and its parallels for the married group: e.g., happily married couples and those who
wish they never entered marital union in the first place. ●

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 References

Accident [Def. 2c]. (2019). In Merriam-Webster, Retrieved November 30, 2019, from
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accident

Bradburn, N. (1969). The structure of psychological well-Being. Chicago: Aldine.

Bradburn, N., & Caplovitz, D. (1965). Reports on happiness. Chicago: Aldine.

Cohen, P. (2014, September 4). Family diversity is the new normal for America’s children: A briefing
paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families. Retrieved from
https://familyinequality.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/family-diversity-new-normal.pdf

DePaulo, B.M., & Morris, W.L. (2005). Singles in society and in science. Psychological Inquiry, 16: 2&3,
57-83.

Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology. New York: Free Press.

Gerstel, N., & Sarkisian, N. (2006). Marriage: The good, the bad, and the greedy. ​Contexts, 5​(4), 16–21.
doi:10.1525/ctx.2006.5.4.16

Gove, W. R. (1972). The relationship between sex roles, marital roles and mental illness. ​Social Forces
51 (September): 34-44.

Gove, W. R. (1973). Sex, marital status, and mortality. ​American Journal of Sociology, 79(​ 1), 45-67.
Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/2776709?seq=1

Gurin, G., Joseph V., & Feld, S. (1960). Americans view their mental health. New York: Basic Books.
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Waite, L.J. (2009). Marital history and well-being in later life. In: Uhlenberg P. (eds) ​International
Handbook of Population Aging​. International Handbooks of Population, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht.
Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-8356-3_31