As long as marriage has been around, people have been extolling the benefits of it. And every so often a study comes along to tell us a new perk of being wed, from sheer happiness to financial stability to, of course, health. Well, here's the latest: Not only is marriage good for you, the inverse is also true -- divorce or the death of a spouse can harm one's health even if the person remarries, according to a study by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago.

(Is it just me, or do these studies always seem to come out when some high profile split is in the news? Jon and Kate plus 8 anyone? With all their drama, I wonder how their health is doing?)

Anyhow, the marriage study, appearing in next month's Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that people who were divorced or widowed were 20 percent more likely to have a chronic health condition such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They were also 23 percent more likely to have mobility problems than couples who stayed together. Even people who remarried were 12 percent more likely to have chronic health problems and 19 percent more likely to have mobility troubles than their married peers.