Ladies first

It's not something worth dying for, but a scientific study has validated that marriage takes a greater toll on women, reducing their lifespan by about 16 months. As the double-X chromosomed part of the world heaves a collective 'We told you so' sigh, men can breathe a little easier.

It's not something worth dying for, but a scientific study has validated that marriage takes a greater toll on women, reducing their lifespan by about 16 months. As the double-X chromosomed part of the world heaves a collective 'We told you so' sigh, men can breathe a little easier. For marriage increases their lifespan by 19 months. So all that nagging and family chores and festivals are actually good for men. While the same nagging and family chores and festivals is telling on the woman's health.

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For health economist Stefan Felder's study, records of over 10,000 dead people were surveyed across Europe. The conclusion, single women had lived longer than their married sisters. The gap was attributed to, what else, stress of managing homelife with workplace demands. Had the survey been conducted in India, the reduced lifespan wouldn't have come as much of a surprise, conditioned as we are to the struggles that a large section of our women face — fighting gender bias, tasked with laborious chores and responsible for the family at cost of her own welfare. But that marriage should reduce women's lifespan in Europe too (wealthy nations like Switzerland were included in the countries surveyed) makes an interesting point — that perhaps, the institution of marriage, social setting neutral, is skewed in favour of men — in the long run that is.

Before the help-the-men societies protest, this is not to say that men don't do their bit to keep spouses healthy and happy. After all, it is supposed to be a matter of adding life to your years and not years to your life. So what's the big deal? We'll wait till the marriage season to answer that one.