The Science of Marriage

Book excerpt: Do you think that getting married makes people happier and healthier and better off in all sorts of other psychological and interpersonal ways? Do you think that these are not just beliefs, but facts based on scientific research? No wonder. Celebrated scholars and authors such as Dan Gilbert and Dan Buettner have been telling us that. Judicial decisions point to those claims. Popular media narratives depend on them. There's just one problem: What we all think we know just isn't so. In THE SCIENCE OF MARRIAGE, Professor Bella DePaulo explains why these pervasive claims are just plain wrong. Dr. DePaulo is a Harvard Ph.D. with more than 100 scholarly publications. She taught graduate courses in research methods for decades. She is also the most eminent scholar of single life. If you are willing to examine beliefs that perhaps you have never questioned before, and think hard as you consider challenging arguments, read this book.