pp. 735-758

Marriage and suicide : the theory on marital regulation according to Durkheim, a century later

The relation between the married state and suicide is a central part of a study by Durkheim, Le suicide, published a century ago. The Durkheim theo on marital regulation suggest that marriage is profitable to men not to women. Therefore the weakening of the marital bond when comparing with single people, should be to disadvantage of married men but to the advantage of married women. The objective of this article is to test this theory using recent suicide figures in France. The variations in suicide figures in relation to the marital status and their evolution are related to the various indicators on marriage and it ups and downs over the last twenty five years. Despite some difficulty in fully testing Durkheim’s theories, occasionally due to lack of data, the results obtained globally confirm his theory.