Calculations for Premature Mortality of Married Women

11 disparate studies analyzing this phenomena from different perspectives all conclude that non marriage (either divorced or never married) increases one's mortality rate even greater than smoking tobacco does. The increase in premature deaths due to non marriage ranges from 650,530 deaths per year to 1,301,840 deaths per year, or 12,685,335 to 25,385,880 over the last 26 years. According to Shurtleff, divorce increases the male mortality rate 102% and females by 42%. According to Maradee Davis, divorce increases the male mortality rate by 117% and females by 102%. Per Ken R. Smith, it is 213% for "poor" males and 114% for "poor" females. Per David Larson, for those who did not remarry, it is 120% for males and 80% for females. Per Gove, it is 239% for males and 95% for females. Per Hemstrom, it is 140% for males and 65% for females. Per both Trovato and Rogers, the increased mortality risk is present in multiple factors, including circulatory diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases, diabetes, accidents, suicides, homicides, cirrhosis, motor vehicle accidents, and "residual". Smoking related deaths--heart disease and cancer--are the least significant, and accidents, suicide, and cirrhosis are the most significant. Most of the studies report that the increased mortality rate is even higher for never married males and females than it is for divorced ones, and Smith reports that never married "poor" men have a 788% higher mortality rate than married men and 1,120% higher than married women.

"New Twist to Marriage and Mortality", Past research has shown that for men, tying the knot can offer a new lease on life--or at least a longer one... "significant others" or other nonrelatives died within 10 years--a rate identical to that in men who lived alone...women...also faced a double risk of early death..., Science News, October 27, 1990.

Individuals who were currently married, but had previously experienced a divorce, were at significantly higher mortality risk compared with consistently married individuals. Tucker, Joan S.; Friedman, Howard S.; Tomlinson-Keasey, Carol; Schwartz, Joseph E.; and others. Childhood psychosocial predictors of adulthood smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1995 Nov, v25 (n21):1884-1899.

Every known study of marital status and mortality rates confirms one simple fact--marriage reduces the mortality rates of both males and females by 3 to 20 times greater than tobacco smoking does.

There are 200 million American adults of marriageable age--those over 18 years of age. Even though only a quarter of them smoke tobacco now, the US Surgeon General estimates that around 100 million Americans smoked in the last 30 years, and that 400,000 of them die each year as a direct result--a mortality rate of 4 per 1,000 population. The average mortality rate of married males 18-69 years old is 12.2 per 1,000 population, and of married females is 7.6. Thus the presence of smokers amongst the married population increases the average mortality rate of males by 11.9% and of females by 20.6%:

All experts agree that tobacco is a factor in the increased risk of mortality associated with divorce, but their data proves that non marriage in itself (caused by feminism) is an even bigger killer than tobacco, a product which is being regulated by Congress due to its ill effects on health. Non marriage increases mortality rates by 3-11 times that of tobacco, and it affects almost twice as many people (94.8 million versus 50 million). If Congress deemed it necessary to regulate tobacco in the best interests of Americans' health--it should certainly regulate feminism. And since feminists think that the premature deaths of 2.2 million women and children in the last 26 years is "fairly neutral when it comes to females", they should be prevented from participating in this vital debate.

Marital Status	Total Number	Delta* Smith	Extra Fatalities per Smith	Delta* Gove	Extra Fatalities per Gove	Delta* Shurtleff	Extra Fatalities per Shurtleff
Unmarried Marriageable Men
Widowed	900,000	37.4	33,660	19.1	17,190	9.0	8,100
Divorced, Not Remarried	11,200,000	6.0	67,200	27.8	311,360	12.5	140,000
Never Married	32,900,000	30.2	993,580	11.1	365,190	8.0	263,200
Divorced Men Remarried	10,000,000	6.0	60,000	27.8	27,800	12.5	125,000
TOTAL Men Fatalities/Year			1,154,440		721,540		536,300
Total Men Fatalities/26 Years			22,511,491		14,070,030		10,457,809
Unmarried Marriageable Women
Widowed	900,000	5.5	4,950	5.4	4,860	4.0	3,600
Divorced, Not Remarried	10,000,000	3.6	36,000	6.7	67,000	3.2	32,000
Never Married	38,900,000	1.7	66,130	4.8	186,720	1.1	42,790
Divorced Women Remarried	11,200,000	3.6	40,320	6.7	75,040	3.2	35,840
TOTAL Women Fatalities/Year			147,400		333,620		114,230
Total Women Fatalities/26 Years			2,874,289		6,505,590		2,227,476
Ratio Men/Women			8.8X		2.16X		4.7X
Total Extra Fatalities/Year			1,301,840		1,055,160		650,530
Total Extra Fatalities Over 26 Years			25,385,880		20,575,620		12,685,335
Cites: 1)Ken R. Smith, "Double Jeopardy", Demography, August 1994, pg. 494. 2) Walter R. Gove, "Sex, Marital Status, and Mortality", American Journal of Sociology, # 79, 1973, pg. 59. 3)D. Shurtleff, Public Health Reports, 1955, reported in "Mortality and Marital Status", 1964 Information Please Almanac. 4) Dr. David Larson, National Institute for Health Research (or see The Family Research Council's homepage at http://www.homeplus.com/fww/Staymarr.htm ). 5) Frank Trovato, "Nativity, Marital Status, and Mortality in Canada", Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology, Feb. 1998, pg. 78. pg 78. 6) Richard G. Rogers, "Marriage, Sex, and Mortality", Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1995, pg. 524. 7) Orjan Hemstrom, "Marriage Dissolution and Mortality Risks", Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1996, pg. 371. 8) Larson, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 1997. 9) Maradee A. Davis, UCSF, "New Twist to Marriage and Mortality", Science News, Oct. 27, 1990, and "For a Longer Life, Take A Wife", Newsweek, Nov. 5, 1990, pg 73. 10) Gillis Samuelson, "Family Network and Mortality", International Journal of Aging and Human Development, Nov-Dec. 1993, pg 277. 11) Debra Umberson, "Gender, Marital Status, and the Social Control of Health Behavior", Social Science and Medicine, April 15, 1992, pg. 907. 12) Judith Hibbard, "Quality of Social Roles as Predictors of Morbidity and Health", Social Science and Medicine, Feb. 1993, pg. 217. 10) Lee A. Lillard, Journal of Human Resources, Spring 1998, pg.437, and Demography, August 1996, pg 1131, and the American Journal of Sociology, March 1995, pg. 1131. 11) Friedman, Howard S. "The interface of mental and physical health", Health Psychology, 1995 Sep, v14 (n5):381-387.

Shurtleff shows the increase in mortality rates of divorced men for the following age groups:

And Rogers shows the relative risk for divorced men for the following factors as a ratio to that for married men.

For every 100,000 divorced 55-59 year old men there are an EXTRA 1,870 deaths among them, broken down into the following health categories:

Feminists can't identify one single way in which women as a group benefitted from feminism, or from the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment. Feminists openly agree that feminism was at least a factor (and most of us maintain that it is the ONLY factor) in the 49 fold increase in the US divorce rate since feminists met in Seneca Falls in 1848 (from 0.1 divorces per 1,000 population to 4.9). There is no question that their radical, anti-family, anti-male agenda is why 45% of marriageable American males remain unmarried (up from 23.2% in 1960), which left 49.8 million women unmarried today. Every study of the relationship between mortality rates and marital status proves that each one of these 49.8 million unmarried women suffers a 42% to 114% higher mortality rate than married women. Simple math proves that such a significantly increased mortality rate of an entire group of 49.8 million women from 5 deaths per 1,000 population to 10.7 deaths per 1,000 population leaves an EXTRA 283,860 DEAD women per year.

If the divorce rate increased 49 fold solely because of feminism, it is likely that heading off feminism at its very roots would have reduced the number of unmarried women today to at least less than 10% of the current number. In this event, less than 28,386 EXTRA women would be dying each year from non-marriage, saving more than 250,000 lives of women per year, and more than 2.2 million over the last 26 years.

The number of lives which could have been saved tells us only a very small part of the story about the quality of life of this unmarried population of almost 50 million women. The fact that their children, including those living with step-fathers, compared to children in two-parent families, are more likely to go to prison by 8 times, to commit suicide by 5 times, to have behavioral problems by 20 times, to become rapists by 20 times, to run away by 32 times, to abuse chemical substances by 10 times, to drop out of high school by 9 times, to be seriously abused by 33 times, to be fatally abused by 73 times, to be one tenth as likely to get A's in school, and to have a 44% higher mortality rate and a 72% lower standard of living reveals even more about their quality of life. It is not any one factor which stands out as the cause of their premature deaths. Relative to married females, never married females are 3 times (3X) more likely to commit suicide or to die of respiratory disease, and divorced females are almost 3 times (3X) as likely to be murdered and more than twice (2X) as likely to die in an accident or commit suicide. The age group of women which experiences the greatest increase in mortality rates is age 25-34, where an EXTRA 1.4 women per 1,000 have 50 years shaved off of their lives.

Feminists claimed that a married woman's "lifestyle" could be preserved upon divorce by transferring wealth to her from her ex-husband, but how wrong feminists are! The data shows that, not only is there no way to transfer the reduced mortality associated with marriage to a divorced woman, but that a divorced woman is in a worse condition than a never married woman with respect to her higher probability of dying from cirrhosis, diabetes, circulatory disease, accidents, and homicides. Compared to a never married woman, she has an average 24% higher mortality rate per Shurtleff, and 16% per Gove.

The feminist reaction from people like Jen Larson at jenny@cutter.lib.udel.edu is totally expected:

> Do you care at all that your ideology kills more people than died in Nazi
> Concentration Camps?

>>" No.

>>It is natural human evolution. It is a means to control the burgeoning
>>population. It is a mechanism to ensure that humans will eventually
>>evolve into equal minded societies. Women know it is inevitable, some men
>>fear loss of power. These are the men whose genes need to be weeded out of
>>the pool and only eqality minded women will complete the task, thus
>>ensuring that humans will evolve in thier intended way ...."

> > > > Not some armchair general dictating what is and isn't and expecting me to

Americans have shown their willingness to die for a cause, but the idea then was to do so in order to protect the lives of many. Who knows how many Americans would have died had King George or Hitler not been stopped, spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Feminists though are demonstrating their willingness to fight to the death for the right to die, and little else. If feminism were already a total success, 100 million American women would now be unmarried, and rather than a quarter of a million EXTRA women dying this year, there would have been half a million. Jen cannot explain what she means by "equal minded societies", burgeoning population", "loss of power", "eqality minded women", or "evolve in thier intended way ...." She is blathering an the feminist tradition, and nothing more. Feminists still have not been able to tell us a single way in which women as a group benefitted from feminism.For their own sake, feminists will be stopped--and it is the responsible woman's vote which will make it happen.

Mortality Rate Per 1,000 Population of Smokers versus Non-smokers	Male	Female
Smokers	14.9	10.3
Non-smokers	10.9	6.3

Age Group	Increase in Mortality Rate per 1,000 Population
under 20	0.7
20-24	1.9
25-34	4.3
35-44	8.2
45-54	13.9
55-59	18.7
60-64	22.8
65-69	29.6

Mortality Factor	Ratio of Divorced Men to Married Men
Circulatory Diseases	1.9
Cancer	2.1
Respiratory Diseases	4.5
Diabetes	2.5
Accidents	3.5
Suicide	4.8
Homicide	4.3
Cirrhosis	5.2
Residual	3.2

Causes of Death, Men, Age 55-59	Number per 100,000 Population Per Year
Circulatory Diseases	111
Cancer	123
Respiratory Diseases	263
Diabetes	146
Accidents	205
Suicide	281
Homicide	251
Cirrhosis	304
Residual	187