It’s hard to talk about divorce. Too often, divorced people have been shunned by Christian society as if they had committed an unforgivable sin.

 Real difficulties drive couples to divorce when that’s the last thing either individual wanted to happen. Sometimes, one spouse abandons a marriage and nothing the other does can bring him or her back.

For families who have lived through divorce, it can seem heartless to spell out how the consequences of divorce may be even worse than we think. But it has to be said.

Science is uncovering more and more evidence pointing to traditional marriage as the best way to go for all involved. It would be wrong to ignore or downplay these findings precisely because there are so many people dealing with the pain of divorce.

No, divorce doesn’t doom your children to a dark life. It doesn’t ensure that you will get sicker or die younger than you otherwise would. But it clearly increases the chances of each of these things happening.

Maggie Gallagher’s Institute for Marriage and Public Policy does an invaluable service by gathering news, research and opinion about marriage and family. The Sept. 8 edition of her newsletter presented research that you probably never heard.

“Marriage is Best for Bringing up Children.” That was the headline on a July 9 article in the London Telegraph. It quoted a survey of 15,000 families carried out for a social justice policy review group headed by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said the report.

The study found that “for unmarried couples — including those cohabiting and ‘closely involved’ — family breakdown is five times more common than among married couples.”

The report pointed out the high correlation between family breakdown and higher crime rates, unemployment and other social pathologies. “Evidence from the study suggests that the low breakdown rates among married couples can be explained by a range of factors including commitment, fathers playing a greater role in their children’s upbringing, and better communication,” it said.

Gallagher’s newsletter quoted a Sept. 6 Reuters article that said, “Divorce apparently harms the cardiovascular health of women, but men’s hearts appear to escape a split-up unscathed, a new study shows.”

Why does divorce hurt women more than men? Probably because women are far more likely to be plunged into economic hardship by divorce than men. That stress takes its toll, said Dr. Zhenmei Zhang of Bowling Green State University in Ohio and Dr. Mark Hayward at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The health effects of marriage are well established,” said the report. “People who have ever been married live longer than their never-married counterparts, and are less likely to suffer from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.”

More on that theme came in a new study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The publication picks up the story from a British Medical Journal Newswise report from Aug. 8: “Never Marrieds Run Highest Risk of Early Death.” The study based its finding on census and death certificate data of 67,000 American adults during the years from 1989 to 1997. 

In 1989, nearly half of adults were married, about 10% were widows, 12% were divorced and 3% separated. About 5% were cohabiting.

By 1997, “After taking into account age, state of health and several other factors likely to influence the findings, those who had been widowed were almost 40% more likely to die between 1989 and 1997. Those who had been divorced or separated were 27% more likely to have died. But those who had never been married were 58% more likely to have died during this period than their peers who were married and still with their spouse in 1989.”

So, of all the options out there, lifelong marriage between a man and a woman is the healthiest choice of all.

It shouldn’t surprise us when research affirms these things. After all, marriage is firmly established in the moral law. It’s guarded by the Sixth Commandment and by Christ’s elevation of marriage to a sacrament. God’s laws are like nature’s laws. Attempts to transgress them end up in frustration and heartbreak.

Spread the good news about marriage. Your witness may offer the only chance someone has to hear the good news about God’s plan for right — and healthy — living.