Resolved to get married this new Jewish Year? There’s still plenty of time to benefit from the healthful effects of marriage.
Some women might even want to wait until Paul McCartney Goes for a 3rd Jewish Wife.
I used to feel guilty about pursuing the protective effect of marriage on JDate. For years the common wisdom in demography had been (when you accounted for all other factors) that married women didn’t make any gains in years of life, but married men did.
So, what did I as a man have to offer the woman of my dreams? She might live just as long whether she married or not.
Michael Rendall and others at RAND, in Santa Monica, have shown that women too, have significant gains in life expectacy, though not as great as men. An unmarried man’s odds of dying in the next year are 2.4 times higher than the odds of an married man at age 25, falling to 1.7 times at age 50, and 1.2 times at age 75. For unmarried women versus married women, the greater odds of dying if unmarried are 1.7 at age 25, 1.4 at age 50 and 1.1 at age 75.
“Marriage protection” ceases at age 84 for women and age 89 for men.
Perhaps marriage doesn’t really protect its incumbents but that healthier men and women select themselves and each other into marriage. Maybe we just pick the healthier potential partners.
So post those healthy looking pictures on your dating website profile. Great Free Love ideas are also available from Annie Korzen, the Bargain Junkie.
Pini Herman is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com
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