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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: \"Traditional Values\"
Message-ID: <62@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Oct-85 09:43:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.62
Posted: Sat Oct 19 09:43:43 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 06:36:30 EDT
References: <828@decwrl.UUCP> <281@fear.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 24

> In article <828@decwrl.UUCP>, dyer@vaxuum.DEC (People 'R' People) writes:
> > 	In general, the traditional marriage benefits the husband
> > much more than the wife, and the results can be seen when one sees
> > mental health statistics in relation to sex and marriage:  married
> > men (in general) enjoy the best mental health and married women
> > (in general) enjoy the worst mental health [3].
> 
> To which Robert Plamondon replied:
> It's only in the 20th century that there was any point arguing the
> case. Even then, traditional marriages held together as long as
> housekeeping was a full-time job, and the husband worked long hours,
> six days a week.
> 
In general I agree with you.  However, I note that Durkheim's classic
study of suicide found that marriage lowered a man's chances of committing
suicide and raised a woman's.  The study was based on data from France and
was published (Le Suicide) in 1897.  Therefore we can conclude that in
the late 19th century in France marriage was *not* an equal bargain.
-- 
"Superior firepower is an      Ethan Vishniac
 important asset when          {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 entering into                 ethan@astro.UTEXAS.EDU
    negotiations"              Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas