Opinion

Unwed Oprah’s being a terrible role model

At long last, Oprah Winfrey has set a bad example.

The 59-year-old self-made billionaire told Access Hollywood last week that she has no intention of marrying longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham.

Oprah admitted briefly rethinking the question at the recent wedding of her friend Tina Turner. “Tina was like, ‘Oprah, you need to do this. You need to do it.’ I was just thinking, ‘Well, OK, would things really be different?’ And no, I don’t think so.”

Actually, what bothered her is that things would be different. She says her arrangement with Stedman is “acceptable as a relationship, but if I had the title ‘wife,’ I think there would be other expectations for what a wife is and what a wife does. First of all, you’ve got to come home sometimes.”

Well, yes, marriage does make things different and not just for 20-somethings committing to a relationship before starting a family. It even changes things for people in their golden years, as two new studies show.

  • A Swedish study published in the journal BMG found that psychological stressors including divorce may increase the risk of dementia later in the life.
  • A more conclusive study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology finds that married cancer patients are significantly more likely to get the treatment they need, and to survive, than single ones.

Analyzing nearly 735,000 cancer diagnoses from 2004 to 2008, the researchers found that single patients were 53 percent less likely to get appropriate therapy than married patients. “This study is the first to show a consistent and significant benefit of marriage on survival among each of the ten leading causes of cancer-related death in the United States,” notes the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Experts speculate that especially for illnesses that require long-term, frequent treatments with difficult side effects like radiation and chemo, it’s of enormous benefit to have a husband or wife — not just a boyfriend or girlfriend — to see you through it all.

Unfortunately, fewer of us are going to be in that position when we get to Oprah’s age, because “Grey Divorce” is on the rise.

So say researchers at the National Center for Marriage and Family Research at Bowling Green University: “The divorce rate among middle-aged and older adults has doubled over the past two decades.”

And, oddly: “This trend is at odds with the overall pattern of divorce for the US population as a whole, which is characterized by stability and perhaps even a slight decline in the rate of divorce.”

Another of the center’s studies found a fall in the number of remarriages for those aged 55 to 64, as well, from 20.5 per 1,000 in 1990 to 16.9 per 1,000 in 2011.

“The whole ‘I did it my way and will continue to do it my way’ spirit of expressive individualism continues to shape the lives of Baby Boomers,” says Brad Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

While this is in part the result of “women’s increased financial independence,” says Wilcox, “the culture’s celebration of individualism means that fewer Americans are spending their Golden Years married.”

Which is sad, frankly. There are plenty of unhappy marriages out there, and many that ended for good cause. Other men and women have good reason for never tying the knot.

But this view of marriage — as merely a means of individual fulfillment — is something bigger. And it means that more of us will die alone.