Summary: The two groups of people who live the longest are those who stay married and those who stay single.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/200902/no-getting-married-does-not-make-you-live-longer

The whole article is worth reading, but here's the main point:

Now let me tell you the results of what is probably the longest-running study of longevity ever conducted. It is the Terman Life-Cycle Study, started in 1921. The 1,528 men and women, who were 11-years old when the study started, have been followed for as long as they lived. Two groups of people lived the longest: those who got married and stayed married, and those who stayed single (link is external). People who divorced, or who divorced and remarried, had shorter lives. What mattered was consistency, not marriage. The results were the same for the men and the women.

So why do they say that getting married will literally save your life if you are a man? Well, it turns out they were twisting the data to fit their narrative.

The most popular cheater method is to pretend that people who are divorced or widowed never did get married. (It is the same method used most often to make the bogus claim that getting married makes you happier or healthier.) Practitioners of this bit of artifice are trying to make an argument that goes something like this: "Divorced people don't live as long as married people, so that shows that getting married expands your life span." But divorced and widowed people DID get married!

A few other flaws in the "married men live longer" narrative not mentioned in the article:

  • Correlation and causation: it may be that men who don't get married don't live as long because they're not doing well in life. Due to hypergamy, men who don't meet a relatively high bar will never get married, and the reason may be because of mental or other health issues.
  • Quote from Bill Maher: I always hear women say, "Y'know, married men live longer." Uh, yes, and an indoor cat...also...lives longer. It's a fur-ball with a broken spirit that can only look out on a world it will never enjoy, but it does, technically, live longer.
  • Harvard study backs up Bill Maher, somewhat implying that single men have more fun while married men have to be more careful: "Unmarried, divorced, and widowed men don’t eat as well as married men. They are less likely to exercise but are more likely to smoke, drink excessively, and engage in other risky behaviors. In contrast, married men are more likely to get regular medical care and to benefit from a higher standard of living."
  • Social isolation may play a factor: "A Harvard study reported that socially isolated men have an 82% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared with men who have strong interpersonal relationships."

There are plenty of reasons for and against marriage, and for men, the reasons for marriage are becoming fewer and further in between. My prediction is that you're going to see more people making up with ways in which marriage benefits a man in order to get more men to marry. Don't fall for it.

Lessons learned:

  • The feminine narrative is strong and they will twist statistics and studies to bring you into their worldview.
  • To live a long life: stay single, or stay married.
  • If you're single, make sure you hang out with plenty of friends and cut back on the skydiving and chain smoking.