There is a brand-new recipe for a healthy life. The basic ingredients are a low-fat diet, regular exercise—and marriage. Countering conventional wisdom that marriage is bad for women but good for men, Dr Linda Waite, a University of Chicago researcher said she found that marriage brings considerable benefits to both women and men. It lengthens life, substantially boosts physical and emotional health, and raises income over that enjoyed by single or divorced people or those who live together. In a large national (United States) sample of adults followed for 18 years beginning at age of 48, slightly more than 60 per cent of divorced and never-married women made it to 65, as opposed to nearly 90 per cent of married women. Widowed women, for reasons not entirely clear, fared almost as well as married women. Among men, however, those unmarried for any reason—whether widowed, divorced or never-married-had only a 60 to 70 per cent chance of living to 65, versus 90 per cent for married men. Since 1994, Dr Waite has found that "marriage changes people's behaviour in ways that make them better off." Married partners monitor each other's health, for example. They also drink less alcohol and use less marijuana and cocaine. Men and especially women who married for the first time during the course of study experienced a sharp increase in happiness. Remarriage, however, brought only a modest increase in happiness. In addition, marriage appeared to reduce the degree of depression. Men and especially women whose marriages ended over the five-year period experienced high level of depression compared with those who stayed married. Single men as a group were depressed at outset of the study and became more depressed if they stayed single. Emotional health also hinges in satisfaction with sex, and in this realm marriage serves both men and women, but delivers a special bonus to women. First of all, Dr Waite said, married people have sex twice as often as single people. Unmarried couples who live together also have an active sex lives but, like unmarried people, get less emotional satisfaction from it than married people, the studies found. For married men, satisfaction hinges on sexual frequency, fidelity, and emotional commitment to the relationship. For women, these elements are equally important, but just the fact of being married added an extra kick to their sexual satisfaction. Married women are not only happier and wealthier than single women, Dr Waite found, they are also safer. Moderate domestic violence (defined as hitting, shoving or throwing things at a partner) occurred half as often with married couples and cohabiting couples engaged to marry than it did with cohabiting couples not planning to marry. The findings suggest that there is more to marriage than just a social bond. There appears to be something specifically protective about the long-term commitment that marriage entails.