Study:  Marriage Works

I suppose it shouldn't be such a surprise, there's a reason people have been doing it for a long time.

But evidence suggests a link between solitariness and poorer health outcomes (mirroring, bleakly, the evidence about the outcomes for children raised in single-parent households). One paper I read showed a significant increase in the prescription of antidepressants to the solitary, compared with cohabiting couples. Correlation doesn’t prove a sociological theory, of course, but it’s hard to ignore the link between living alone, and other deleterious life choices.  

Which demands a political response: marriage is the most important institution to act as a bulwark against loneliness, and the Government should promote it.

Then, of course, there's also this Martin Amis quote addressing the flip side:

"After a while, marriage is a sibling relationship – marked by occasional and rather regrettable, episodes of incest."