Time magazine’s recent special issue on “The Science of Romance” cited a 2006 study led by James Coan, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, showing the dramatically therapeutic effects of spousal hand-holding. The article describes how researchers told women study subjects they were going to be subjected to an electric shock, then tracked the release of stress chemicals in the brain. Among happily married women, stress activity declined sharply when their husbands held their hands during the experiment. Meanwhile, the article states, “Women who reported being less satisfied with their marriage — and women whose hands were held by strangers — got little such relief.” Makes sense. Hand-holding is a sign and expression of the married couple’s conjugal and sacramental unity — a unity that, according to No. 1643 of the Catechism, “leads to forming one heart and soul.”
Kevin Bedan illustration