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From: dyer@vaxuum.DEC (People 'R' People)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: \"Traditional Values\"
Message-ID: <982@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Oct-85 16:12:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.982
Posted: Tue Oct 22 16:12:45 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 01:17:47 EDT
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Re: "Traditional Values"__________________________________________

>> 	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
>> [footnote refers to J.S. Bernard's _The_Future_of_Marriage_].
>
>   . . . 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.

	Durkheim concluded that suicide is the result of not being
integrated into society enough.  Bernard's book gets into specif-
ics, but in general, many of the things a wife loses in a marriage
(which a husband does not lose) have to do with integration into
society!
	Ever since Freud set up shop at the beginning of the 20th
Century (or thereabouts), married women have enjoyed the worst
mental health.  Bernard's book shows that there is an imbalance of
benefits in a traditional marriage, and argues that there is a
connection between the two.  If it could be demonstrated that some
kind of imbalance existed before the 20th Century and before Durk-
heim's study, the same arguments could be made.

	I wasn't really thinking that far back.  I guess for some,
the "Good Old Days" are pre-20th Century.  I guess when somebody
mentions the "Good Old Days," I think about the Depression years
that Ronald Reagan so fondly and innacurately remembers.
		<_Jym_>
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::'    ::    `::       Dracut, Massachusetts      ::'    ::    `::
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