Marriage and health: His and hers

This review focuses on the pathway leading from the marital relationship to physical health. Evidence from 64 articles published in the past decade, p articularly marital interaction studies, suggests that marital functioning is consequential for health; negative dimensions of marital functioning hav e indirect influences on health outcomes through depression and health habi ts, and direct influences on cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, neurosensor y, and other physiological mechanisms. Moreover, individual difference vari ables such as trait hostility augment the impact of marital processes on bi ological systems. Emerging themes in the past decade include the importance of differentiating positive and negative dimensions of marital functioning , the explanatory power of behavioral data, and gender differences in the p athways from the marital relationship to physiological functioning. Contemp orary models of gender that emphasize self-processes, traits, and roles fur nish alternative perspectives on the differential costs and benefits of mar riage for men's and women's health.