Married men more likely to dump sick spouses

It seems that men don’t take the “in sickness and in health” vow as seriously as women do. Husbands are more likely to dump their ailing wives, while women tend to stand by their men in sickness, according to a new study.

The research, published in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that when wives contract a serious disease, the rate of divorce goes up by 6 percent.

But when a man gets seriously ill, there is no impact on divorce rates, the researchers found.
Amelia Karraker — lead author of the report and an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State — didn’t provide an explanation for the difference between men and women.

She said she became interested in studying the matter in light of the political uproar surrounding the divorces of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Sen. John Edwards, who both dumped their cancer-stricken wives.