Benefits of marriage for reducing risk of violent death from suicide and homicide for white and nonwhite persons: generalizing Gove's findings.

Abstract

Gove (1973) noted that marriage reduced the relative risk of suicide (and mental illness) for men more than it did for women. He looked at the coefficient of preservation (Durkheim, 1951), the ratio, for example, of the suicide rate for single persons divided by the suicide rate for married persons. The present study examined the generality of Gove's finding for homicide as well as suicide using the only published rates by marital status for the USA for 1959-1961 from Langberg ( 1967) and Massey ( 1967) and explored whether the phenomenon was observed for both white and nonwhite persons. The coefficient of preservation for suicide was greater for men than for women for the single/married white group (1.88 versus 1.41), divorced/ married white group (4.05 versus 3.55), and widowed/married white group (4.84 versus 2.07). The coefficient of preservation for suicide was also greater for men than for women, for the single/married nonwhite group (1.72 versus 1.04), the divorced/married nonwhite group (2.55 versus 1.79), and for the widowed/married nonwhite group (2.92 versus 2.34). In addition, the coefficient of preservation for homicide was greater for men than for women for the single/married white group (1.69 versus 0.61), the divorced/married white groilp (6.64 versus 4.61), but not for the widowed/ married white group (3.52 versus 3.61). The coefficient of preservation was also greater for men than for women for nonwhite persons; the three similar comparisons were 1.55 versus 1.17, 2.55 versus 1.79, and 2.92 versus 2.34, respectively. Marriage may be inferred to reduce the relative risk of suicide and homicide more for men than for women for both white and nonwhite groups. Gove's finding appears to be robust.