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77 Soc. F. 315 (1998-1999)
Marriage, Divorce, and Male Testosterone

handle is hein.journals/josf77 and id is 333 raw text is: Marriage, Divorce, and Male Testosterone* ALLAN MAZUR, Syracuse University JOEL MICHALEK, Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks Air Force Base Abstract Among male air force veterans of the Vietnam era, age-adjusted testosterone levels are lower in married men than among those who are single or divorced. Contrary to the assumption of some sociological studies, age-adjusted testosterone level is not constant over time. Testosterone is relatively high during the years surrounding a divorce and testosterone level falls during the years surrounding marriage. Changing testosterone levels may explain the low criminality found among married men and the increase in the abuse of wives around the time of divorce. Married men, living stably with their wives, are less prone to crime than unmarried men (Homey et al. 1995; Sampson & Laub 1990, 1993). Married men are less likely than single men of the same age to kill an unrelated male; divorced men exhibit homicide rates similar to single men of their age (Daly & Wilson 1990). At the same time, wife abuse is a serious problem (Straus & Gelles 1990), and men's violence against their wives - but not women's violence against their husbands - is especially high around the time of divorce or separation (Allen 1990; Wallace 1986; Wilson & Daly 1993). Without disregard to the purely social mechanisms linking marital status to antisocial behavior in men, there is reason to consider, in addition, the possibility of hormonal mechanisms. Using an unusually large cross-sectional data set of nearly 4,500 male army veterans of the Vietnam period, Booth and his associates have shown that divorced men have higher testosterone than married men of the same age (Booth & Dabbs 1993; Booth & Osgood 1993). Experiments on animals show that heightened testosterone causes aggressive or dominating behavior in males * Direct all correspondence to Professor Allan Mazur, Public Affairs Program, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244. E-maik amazur@syr.edu. Social Forces, September 1998, 77(1):315-30 0 The University of North Carolina Press

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