Whether or not you favor marriage as a social institution, there's no denying that it confers many rights, protections, and benefits -- both legal and practical. Some of these vary from state to state, but the list typically includes:
Tax Benefits
•Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
•Creating a "family partnership" under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.
Estate Planning Benefits
•Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate.
•Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
•Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIP trusts, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
•Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse -- that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.
Government Benefits
•Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
•Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
•Receiving public assistance benefits.
Employment Benefits
•Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
•Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
•Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
•Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.
Medical Benefits
•Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
•Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.
Death Benefits
•Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
•Making burial or other final arrangements.
Family Benefits
•Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
•Applying for joint foster care rights.
•Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
•Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.
Housing Benefits
•Living in neighborhoods zoned for "families only."
•Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.
Consumer Benefits
•Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
•Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
•Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.
Other Legal Benefits and Protections
•Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
•Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
•Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can't force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
•Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
•Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
•Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
Benefits of Being Married
Marriage is a sacred union between man and wife and should be honored at all costs. It can affect all aspect of your life, for instance income potential, taxes, expenses and insurance. Having a well paid job and good health is evident in marriage. Although marriage does not provide financial stability, it truly offers an array of benefits.
1. Emotional Benefits
According to psychological studies, married people have lower cases of schizophrenia and depression compared to single individuals. Also, they cope with stress better since they can share their problems with one another. In other words, married people feel better and are more optimistic in life than single individuals.
2. Share living expenses
Another benefit of being married is that you can share day-to-day living expenses. Sharing these costs can allow the couple to settle their debts on time, save some money for investing and retirement. On the other hand, unmarried couples may find it difficult to share financial responsibilities. For example, you might be reluctant to loan your partner some money, even when it makes sense.
3. Health benefits
Several studies show that married couples have better health than single individuals. For instance, cases of diabetes are more prevalent in women that live alone. Couples that live alone due to separation are more vulnerable to hypertension, according to recent studies. In other words, being married is the only sure way to remain jovial and healthy.
4. They don’t overindulge in vices
Married couples have better control over vices such as drugs as they share their problems with one another. Typically, people who are divorced, widowed or single are more likely to indulge in such vices.
Compromise is the major downside of being married. Because you are used to doing things on your own, negotiating and compromising with your partner may be difficult.
If you're susceptible to vice, find a wife. She'll save you from yourself—and improve your life—in a variety of ways. Notably, she'll . . .
1. Increase Your Pay
A Virginia Commonwealth University study found that married men earn 22 percent more than their similarly experienced but single colleagues.
2. Speed Up Your Next Promotion
Married men receive higher performance ratings and faster promotions than bachelors, a 2005 study of U.S. Navy officers reported.
3. Keep You Out of Trouble
According to a recent U.S. Department of Justice report, male victims of violent crime are nearly four times more likely to be single than married.
4. Satisfy You in Bed
In 2006, British researchers reviewed the sexual habits of men in 38 countries and found that in every country, married men have more sex.
5. Help You Beat Cancer
In a Norwegian study, divorced and never-married male cancer patients had 11 and 16 percent higher mortality rates, respectively, than married men.
6. Help You Live Longer
A UCLA study found that people in generally excellent health were 88 percent more likely to die over the 8-year study period if they were single.
The Benefits of Marriage
Marriage is linked to health and economic benefits. Married individuals tend to have better physical health, psychological well-being, and a lower mortality risk. Financially, married men tend to earn more, and married women are less likely to fall into poverty. Marriage is also linked to greater wealth accumulation.
◦Married couples report greater sexual satisfaction. The highest levels of sexual satisfaction were reported by individuals who were in married, monogamous relationships, while those who were single or cohabiting reported slightly lower levels of sexual satisfaction.
◦Married women report higher levels of physical and psychological health. Formerly married women reported the worst health while never married women fell between these two groups. Compared with unmarried women, married women had less job stress, environment stress, child stress, financial stress, and relationship stress. Health measures included self-rated health, distress level, chronic illness, and a number of stress types, ranging from social life stress to job strain.
◦Married people are more likely to volunteer. Compared to unmarried peers, married adults were1.3 times more likely to have volunteered for socialservices and averaged 1.4 times more volunteer hours.
◦Being married increases the likelihood of affluence. This association applied to all age groups.
◦Married people tend to experience less depression and fewer problems with alcohol. Men who married and stayed married tended to be less depressed than those who remained single. Among women, marriage was associated with fewer alcohol problems.
◦Getting married increases the probability of moving out of a poor neighborhood. Marriage nearly doubled the probability that a person would move from a poor to a non-poor neighborhood. Likewise, the dissolution of a marriage more than doubled the probability that a person would move from a non-poor to poor neighborhood. Among blacks, marital dissolution increased the likelihood of moving from a non-poor to a poor neighborhood almost six-fold.
◦Married men make more money. Taking into consideration a number of factors including educational attainment, compared with unmarried peers, married men earned, on average, 20 percent more in wages.
◦Ever-married women are less likely to experience poverty. Compared to never-married peers, women who had ever been married were substantially less likely to be poor—regardless of race, family background, non-marital births, or education. Ever-married women have a poverty rate that was roughly one-third lower than the poverty rate of never-married women. Currently married women had an even lower probability of living in poverty—about two-thirds lower than other women.
◦Marriage is associated with a lower mortality risk. Compared to married individuals, those who have never been married had nearly twice the mortality risk. Divorced or separated individuals ran a mortality risk more than 50 percent higher than those who were married. The black-white mortality gap narrowed when marital status was taken into account.
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