Friday, February 29, 2008

Being Single can Kill You!


There is a fascinating article in the UK Daily Mail entitled: "Being unmarried makes a woman a high suicide risk."

When I first saw the title of the article I was a little skeptical. I started it hoping that this wasn't some post-valentines day blues or some love sick advice but it turned out to be something completely different. They surveyed "single" woman who do not actually marry anyone but instead cohabitate and then those who are just single compared with married women and their respective suicide rates. They concluded with this:

"It found that those who do not marry were killing themselves at three times the rate of wives."

The rate was something like this: "By 2004, there were 15 suicides in 100,000 single women and five among married women."

In Britain you have an obvious decline in morals concerning sexuality and especially when it comes to marriage. For example according to this article: "Since then, ministers have stripped away tax breaks for marriage, abolishing the Married Couples Allowance and removing all reference to marriage from tax and benefit forms." The Brits don't even apparently acknowledge this stuff anymore! They continued:

"The findings, in a study by the Government's Office for National Statistics, suggest that cohabitation has made a high proportion of young women more vulnerable to depression."

This last comment is perhaps the most honest statement I have ever read concerning this subject! We have heard over and over again that women who are married and stay at home are not really woman. That they are submitting themselves to a lesser existence compared to woman who go out and "make something of their lives". These "devil wears prada" women have no need for men just like fish don't need bicycles. They can survive on their own and maybe occasionally meet up with someone to fulfill "biological needs". Yet, the Brits have landed on, roughly I bet, a hard truth that we (men and women) both need each other and only a strong commitment, dare we say covenant, seems to work. For some reason marriage is a commitment that apparently, according to this study, brings more fulfillment in life. Now to be fair it no where states why these women committed suicide, a very important question I would like to know, however it's a fascinating look into how those who took the study interpreted it. Being single may kill you!

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"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." Matthew 7:13-14