By Carol Church, Writer, Family Album

Reviewed by Suzanna Smith, PhD, Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences, University of Florida, and Gregg Henderschiedt, MS, Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences, University of Florida

The legality of gay marriage has been debated in courts all over the country, with a recent decision by the US Supreme Court not to hear various cases opening the way to more same-sex unions in more states. While legalization of gay marriage would bring many changes, one important possibility is simply that it would cause many more gay and lesbian couples to go ahead and get married.

Are Same-Sex Couples Less Stable?

Those who support gay marriage say one advantage is the increased family stability that comes along with the legal rights and emotional commitment of marriage. Indeed, in the past, some have made the claim that overall, same-sex couples tend to be less stable over time than partners of the opposite sex.

However, some of these assumptions are based on old data that likely included people in casual relationships. A recent study in the Journal of Marriage and Family looked more closely at national data from about 3000 couples, including about 470 same-sex couples.

Marriage of Any Kind Matters...

The researchers found that, taken as a whole, dating, married, or cohabiting same-sex couples were less stable than dating, married, or cohabiting opposite-sex couples. However, when they compared married opposite-sex partners to same-sex partners who said they were in a marriage or marriage-like relationship (legal or not), there were no differences in relationship stability.

In other words, same-sex couples who had committed to each other in some way, even if their state did not recognize gay marriage or gay civil unions, were just as likely to stay together long-term as married heterosexual couples. This is especially noteworthy because the data for this study were collected before major changes in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 2013, meaning that none of these same-sex couples benefited from federal recognition of their marriages.

…But State Legality Increases Marriage

But while all types of gay marriages, state-recognized or not, were pretty stable, state legality did make a difference. When same-sex couples lived in a state with legal gay marriage, they were much more likely to report being married or being in a marriage-like relationship. So, legalized gay marriage seems to lead to more marriage–which appears to stabilize more relationships.

It still remains to be seen if and when the full legal rights and privileges of marriage will be extended to all gay and lesbian couples nationwide. However, more and more states are going forward and permitting these unions. These research findings seem to confirm what many gay marriage proponents have been saying all along: when more couples have the opportunity to commit to one another and invest in their relationships, more partnerships will be strengthened.

(Photo credit: Gay Marriages NYC by Jose Antonio Navas. CC BY 2.0. Cropped.)

References:

Rosenfeld, M. (2014). Couple longevity in the era of same-sex marriage in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 905–918. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12141

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