Subject to Debate.

This article presents views of Professor Linda J. Waite, on the benefits of marriage, on the basis of her paper at the Population Association of America's annual conference, "Does Marriage Matter?" As she has discovered, marriage is good for a person. Married people have more money, more sex, more satisfaction and, longer lives than those who are unmarried. Certainly there is no need for sociology to tell that two people pooling their resources and facing life together can reap benefits closed to those who are single or who live together but keep their resources separate. This would probably be true in any society, but is particularly the case in the U.S., where for millions of people, marriage is the only social-welfare system.