A very interesting article was published earlier this month in New England Journal of Medicine about mortality rates after hospitalization of a spouse. You don’t have to read the full text of the article. The point that I want to make is quite obvious in the abstract.

Among men, 6.4 percent died within a year after a spouse's hospitalization for colon cancer, 6.9 percent after a spouse's hospitalization for stroke, 7.5 percent after a spouse's hospitalization for psychiatric disease, and 8.6 percent after a spouse's hospitalization for dementia. Among women, 3.0 percent died within a year after a spouse's hospitalization for colon cancer, 3.7 percent after a spouse's hospitalization for stroke, 5.7 percent after a spouse's hospitalization for psychiatric disease, and 5.0 percent after a spouse's hospitalization for dementia.
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Overall, for men, the risk of death associated with a spouse's hospitalization was 22 percent of that associated with a spouse's death (95 percent confidence interval, 17 to 27 percent); for women, the risk was 16 percent of that associated with death (95 percent confidence interval, 8 to 24 percent)

Men get more affected by serious illness or death of their wives compared to the other way around. More than twice as many men die within a year of incapacitation or death of their wives than the women do in case of incapacitated or dead husbands.

Is it because men love their wives more, miss them and can’t live without them or are they just inept and can’t continue living without the helping hand of a wife?