Last week, when USA Today ran a story titled, "Federally funded ad campaign holds up value of marriage," I immediately blogged about it here. The person who wrote that story, Sharon Jayson, called yesterday to talk to me about my post. So the first thing I want to say to Sharon Jayson and to USA Today is thank you. I'm not trained in journalism but I have little doubt that responsiveness to criticism is a hallmark of high professional standards in that field.
I want to thank Jayson and USA Today, too, because blogs are still disputed territory in the media, so responding to a blog post is a way of taking this form of expression seriously.
Jayson and I discussed two issues: Was USA Today really coming down on the side of marriage or marriage-promotion? And, what does the science really say about the implications of getting married? I think that she was right about the first and I was right about the second.
About the claim that getting married makes you happier and healthier, she thought I was saying that there are exceptions here or there. I'm saying something much bolder: If there are any properly-conducted and analyzed studies showing that getting married makes you happier or healthier, THEY are the exceptions!
Continue reading here, at the Living Single blog on the Psychology Today website.