There is a well-established link between marital status and mental health, but previous research
has produced mixed results about the reasons for this relationship. Some studies propose that
marriage provides protection from stressors and increases personal coping abilities (the causation
perspective), whereas other studies argue that marriage markets “weed out” individuals predisposed
to illness (the selection perspective). This article addresses the causation-versus-selection debate by
examining the effect of marital status on duration of treatment for mental illness. The empirical
analysis uses longitudinal data and GEE models to estimate group-level differences in duration
of treatment. The results suggest that marriage does not appear to confer a health advantage
in terms of duration of treatment. However, the study demonstrates that the never-married
experience longer treatment time than the married, divorced, and widowed.