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"Initially, I wrote the book as a result of an analysis I was asked to do of 50,000 American men who had died," she says, from her New York home. "It turned out marital status is the most reliable predictor of death -- single, divorced and separated men die younger than married men." She examined international data and found evidence proving that medical histories, sexual satisfaction, financial status and longevity improved globally within marriages. However, in synthesizing research on all the benefits of marriage for her book, Gallagher did not find the same benefits held true for couples living together. Keep in mind, her research may be international, but her book is clearly written from an American perspective, where the divorce rate is 50%. In Canada, it is a projected 36%, and, legally, common-law couples have almost all the benefits of matrimonial relationships. Even though, as Glossop says, "a good marriage is good for you and we still talk about life-long commitment, it's difficult to fulfil because our culture doesn't support it. "Sex in marriage is put down," he says. "Popular culture presents sex as sexual passion, but never with the frequency, quality or openness of sex over the course of a marriage where passion can turn into compassion." Gallagher agrees. As director of the Marriage Program at the Institute of American Values, she is a leader in what Reed calls "the New Marriage Movement," burgeoning, broad-based and bent upon revitalizing marriage after 30 years of sexual freedom, individualism and the culture of divorce. All this may be so, but the problem, as Glossop sees it, is that you can't turn back the clock. "There's no longer any political or economic reason to marry," he says. "Women are more independent. You don't marry to satisfy expectations of parents, grandparents, co-workers, bosses, the community, the dictates of the church, to avoid sanctions of the law or to legitimize a personal promise you want to make to one another. In the last 30 years, there's been a profound cultural shift."
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