Thursday 27 March 2008

Merry widows happiest

Interesting.  A survey of 9000 New Zealanders has found that widows and widowers are happier than married people of either gender.

Since numbers themselves are silent as to causality, I'll allow you to make your own speculations as to the lessons to be drawn from the result.

8 comments:

Damian said...

Perhaps the correlation is that older people are happier than younger people and that widow/ers are more likely to be older than younger.

Anonymous said...

The lesson can't be 'don't get married' since the law makes no meaningful distinction.

With the help of a couple of friends I have decided that one's partner is usally past their use-by date after 15 years. After that is is time for them to move along. Unfortunately with all the bureaucratic hoops one has to jump through it's often easier (not to mention a lot less costly), to wait until your partner dies.

So maybe that explains it.

Peter Cresswell said...

"With the help of a couple of friends ..."

You've been into that wife-swapping again, haven't you. I warned you that would come to a bad end. ;^)

Anonymous said...

Ha ha - merry widows can sit back, have a drink, they don't have to think about what someone else wants, and they don't have to wash someone else's socks - what is there not to be happy about?!

A rhetorical question...

Oswald Bastable said...

After 10 years of married life, I have no fear of death!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I think I would be happier if my wife were a widow.

Brian Smaller

Peter Cresswell said...

You'd better not ask her. She might confirm your fears. :-)

Anonymous said...

Here's some news to increase your longevity that will please men everywhere:

Fighting with spouse can be good for your health

Women in particular may put their health at risk by holding back during arguments with their spouse, a 10-year study of 4,000 men and women from Framingham, Massachusetts, found. "Women who 'self-silenced' during conflict with their spouse, compared with women who did not, had four times the risk of dying
"
...Harburg says the first step is to let the person know you're mad -- the sooner, the better.


http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/26/squabbling.spouses/index.html

Hard to disagree with the last sentence.