The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelly

To get anywhere close to unraveling this subject-women and marriage-we have to start with the cold, ugly fact that marriage does not benefit women as much as it benefits men. I did not invent this fact, and I donБЂ™t like saying it, but itБЂ™s a sad truth, backed up by study after study. By contrast, marriage as an institution has always been terrifically beneficial for men. If you are a man, say the actuarial charts, the smartest decision you can possibly make for yourself-assuming that you would like to lead a long, happy, healthy, prosperous existence-is to get married. Married men perform dazzlingly better in life than single men. Married men live longer than single men; married men accumulate more wealth than single men; married men excel at their careers above single men; married men are far less likely to die a violent death than single men; married men report themselves to be much happier than single men; and married men suffer less from alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression than do single men. БЂњA system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage,БЂ«wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1813, but he was dead wrong, or at least with regard to male human happiness ...»