Miserable? Then get married
A shock revelation from the world of science: marriage alleviates depression — or, at least, it can if one is already pretty miserable. In a survey of 3,066 happily and not-so-happily marrieds, Adrianne Frech, a (clearly unhitched) researcher in sociology at Ohio State University, discovered that “just mattering to someone else can help to alleviate symptoms of depression”.
As ever, it takes a sociologist to chip away at the fundamental truths of human existence. Without them, where would we be, haplessly getting married for all the conventional reasons — boredom, kitting out one’s kitchen, evening up the numbers at supper parties — without appreciating the institution’s Prozac-like qualities?
In fact, this is the latest in a series of pseudo-scientific hypotheses that suggest that one can do nothing right in the realm of relationships short of digging a big hole and climbing into it. One minute cohabitation is deemed vital for male sanity, the next it is recommended only to cat-owning lesbians.
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Meanwhile, the rest of us know that one’s domestic arrangements are best governed according to a single axiom: whatever gets you through the day/night.