Married Men Behave Better

Men who are married engage in less aggressive and illegal behavior than those who aren't, according to a new study.

The trend seems to be partly because of the bonding effect of marriage itself and partly because less antisocial men tend to be the ones walking down the aisle in the first place, the research shows.

Previous links have been drawn between marriage and the reduction in bad behavior. But it wasn't known why.

Researchers from Michigan State University found that men who are more antisocial -- defined as being aggressive, having a lack of remorse, being irresponsible and dismissing the rights of others -- are less likely to tie the knot, while those who are less antisocial are more likely to get married.

"Antisocial personality disorder is often misunderstood as being asocial," lead author S. Alexandra Burt, an associate professor of psychology, told AOL Health. "It's a pervasive pattern of disregarding and violating the rights and safety of others."

But being married also appears to further lessen antisocial tendencies, the researchers found.

"If you're bonded to other people [like a spouse], maybe you're going to be less likely to disregard their rights," Burt said.

University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Dr. Christos Ballas called that part of the study "silly."

"Of course he is engaged in less antisocial behaviors -- he doesn't have the opportunity to be involved in it," Ballas told AOL Health. "Can he go out every weekend and get drunk? Nope, but he doesn't not because he's a better person, but because the institution of marriage requires him to stay home more."

The findings, published online and in the December issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, relied on subjects who were twins to rule out the possibility that different genetic makeups were behind the trend.

Researchers analyzed data from 289 pairs of male twins four different times, when they were 17, 20, 24 and 29 years old.

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But once the men in the study had wed, their rates of antisocial behavior dropped even more.

The team looked at pairs of identical twins, one who had gotten married and one who had stayed single, finding that the married twin usually seemed to exhibit less antisocial behavior than the unmarried twin did.

Burt theorizes that with marriage comes more bonding with one's spouse and less time spent with antisocial friends who are likely to get into trouble themselves.

"There is a reduction in the amount of time spent with deviant peers," she told AOL Health. "Instead of hanging out with their friends all the time, they're with their wife."

The positive effect of being a husband also appeared to be stronger in good marriages than in bad ones, the researchers said.

"The stronger the marriage and the better the marriage, the lower the levels of antisocial behavior," Burt explained. "But there might be a chicken-and-egg thing going on: Is it easier to have better marital quality with someone who is nicer to begin with? We're not really sure."

Men are much more prone to being antisocial than women, she said, which is why women weren't included in the study.

"The number of women I would expect to be engaging in antisocial behavior is very, very small," said Burt.

Ultimately, the authors concluded that the relationship between marriage and good behavior is fairly complex.

"Our results indicate that the reduced rate of antisocial behavior in married men is more complicated than we previously thought," Burt said in a statement. "Marriage is generally good for men, at least in terms of reducing antisocial behavior, but the data also indicate that it's not random who enters into the state of marriage."

But does the research really prove what it claims? Ballas isn't so sure.

"The study doesn't show that married men engage in less antisocial behaviors. It shows that when you're married, you can kiss all those fun times good-bye," he said. "That would be a joke, by the way; my wife may read this."
from Time