There is an extensive literature suggesting that marriage confers benefits to both men and women in the form of increased earnings, better health and a longer life. Yet, where the focus is on health, most of this work has centered on one or two measures of health outcomes or on certain health...

Using a large, U.S. dataset it is shown that children are more likely to receive needed mental health specialty treatment when women have greater decision-making power, as measured by an index of wife-favorable divorce laws and by the sex ratio at the time of marriage. Stratified analyses show...