Safer Hitched, Even Safer When He's Gone

Hey, girls, I just found the secret!

To what?, you ask.

To not getting beat up--or becoming the victim of violent crime in general.

Here it is:  Get married.

At least, that's what W. Bradford Wilcox and Robin Fretwell would have us believe.

Who are they, and how did they reach such a conclusion?

Well, he's a Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. Also, he directs the Home Economics Project of the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies.  Fretwell is the Joplin Law Professor and Director of the program in family law and policy at the University of Illinois.

Oh, but it gets better. Professor Wilcox played a key role in the infamous Regenerus study, which claims that gay parents ruin kids.  Fretwell signed a letter to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer saying that critics of the bill allowing business owners to discriminate based on their religious beliefs have it all wrong.

They claim that a 1994 Department of Justice study they cite shows that never-married women are four times as likely as married women to be victims of violent crime.

After making such a sensational claim, they concede, two paragraphs later that women in healthy, stable relationships are more likely to "opt into" marriage, while those in unhealthy, unstable relationships often lack the power--or the wish--to demand marriage.  You can drive a few large vehicles through that hole.  And it's not the only one in their argument.

The DoJ study also shows that 20-to-24 year old women--who are younger than today's average age for marriage--are most likely to be victims of rape, other violent assaults or robbery.  Also, it shows that women with lower incomes are more likely to be victimized, and widows least likely to experience violent crime.

Hmm...So, we should get married ASAP and never, ever leave.  But when our husbands die, we'll be really safe.

That's science?