Happiness in the Garden of Epicurus

Epicurus formulated his happiness advice during the Hellenistic period in Greek history that runs from 323 B.C., the year of the death of Alexander the Great until the establishment of the Roman Empire in 31 B.C. (Tarn, 1952). In this era many new philosophies were formulated and gained popularity; it seems that the philosophies in vogue at the end of the fourth century B.C., the schools of Plato and Aristotle, could no longer provide reasonable answers for life in the changing times that resulted from the politics and conquests of Alexander the Great. The new so-called Hellenistic philosophies, Stoicism, Skepticism and Epicureanism, are sometimes called the products of the new world Alexander the Great had made, and can be regarded as attempts to come to terms with the changing social and political circumstances (Long, 1986; Tarn, 1952). The Greeks came into contact with new philosophies, religions and cultures, and transplanted the social institutions of the Greek mainland to Asia and Egypt (Long, 1986).

The sheer size of the Greek empire caused the importance of the city-state to decline. People were travelling around; citizenship was no longer bound to one city; and the city-state was no longer the way to organize society. The Greeks started to think about people as individuals living in a cosmopolitan universe of which Greece formed only a part (Jones, 1989). The old loyalty to the Greek race, the city-state, and its Olympic Gods didn’t seem that important anymore. Commitment to civic and political activity could no longer compete with the more immediate claims of private life (Jones, 1989; Russell, 1990). The Greek citizens became alienated from the affairs of their own city.

The changes were accompanied by a general feeling of insignificance and insecurity. The world had become unpredictable and bewildering for many Greeks. The years after Alexander’s death were characterized by political instability, wars and dynastic struggles (Russell, 1990; Tarn, 1952). This situation added to the impulse to turn away from the outer world and seek security and identity in the sphere of private relationships (Jones, 1989). The Hellenistic philosophies took various positions in an effort to deal with these changing times. Stoicism addressed the more highly educated and aristocratic citizens with its focus on public life. Epicurus’ philosophy appealed mostly to the fearful and oppressed citizens, the ones that didn’t want the new world (Tarn, 1952). It promised a way out of the turmoil into a more quiet and safe life.

Epicurus was born on the island of Samos in 341 B.C. as the son of Neocles and Chairestrate. Because he was born in a colony of Athens he was an Athenian citizen and at the age of 18 he went to Athens to fulfil his military obligations. In 321 he joined his parents in Colophon on the west coast of Asia Minor. Then he stayed a while in Mytilene on Lesbos and in Lampsacus. The details of Epicurus’ life in the period 320–310 are not well known, nor is it entirely clear where and by whom Epicurus was educated. He claimed to be self-taught, although tradition has it that he was schooled in the systems of Plato and Democritus (Laertius, 1994, pp. 3–4).

Between 307 and 305 Epicurus settled again in Athens. He purchased a house and a large walled Garden where he taught and where he and a group of followers formed a close community. His school became known by the name of the Garden––Kêpos. In antiquity the Garden was famous for its closed character, the enormous loyalty to Epicurus and the close friendships between the members. Epicurus stayed in Athens until he died in 271 at the age of 72. Although his writings were voluminous, there are only fragments left (Algra, 1998b, pp. 9–11).

After his death, Epicureanism continued to flourish as a philosophical movement. Communities of Epicureans sprang up throughout the Hellenistic world, a cult rose around the person Epicurus and celebrations were held in his memory. Epicureanism went into decline with the rise of Christianity and it was not until the Renaissance that serious interest in Epicureanism was revived.

Epicurus followed the popular division of philosophy into three parts: physics, logic and ethics. He confined logic to epistemology––kanônika––which enables us to distinguish true from false propositions. The primary criterion of truth comes from the senses; we can gain knowledge through the senses and we can trust the senses when properly used (Epicurus, 1994, p. 38). Feelings––pâthe––also provide criteria for the truth; they serve as criteria for values. Epicurus also identifies prolepsis as a criterion. The prolepsis of a thing is an instinctively acquired generic grasp of its nature and includes those of god, human beings and body.

Epicurus’ physics is based on his epistemology: on the indisputable evidence from the sense-experiences and the natural generic conceptions. His physics is materialistic and mechanistic (Algra, 1998a, p. 26). He appropriated much of the mechanics of his predecessor, the atomist Democritus, but introduced an element of spontaneity. Epicurus believed that the basic constituents of the world were atoms moving in the void and that ordinary objects are conglomerations of these atoms. The properties of macroscopic bodies and all the events we see occurring can be explained in terms of the coalitions, rebounding, and entanglements of atoms (Epicurus, 1994, pp. 42–44).

Epicurus’ thoughts about ethics are based on his view of physics and logic. In the domain of ethics we should trust our feelings of pleasure and pain. Pleasure––hêdonê––is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable and should be regarded as the main criterion for all actions. It is given by human nature that all our actions aim at pleasure and try to avoid displeasure. Epicurus argues that the behaviour of the newborn confirms this theory (Epicurus, 1994, p. 128). Epicurus outlines the view that pleasure and pain are jointly exhaustive: the absence of pain is itself pleasure. This implies that there is no intermediate state: For we are in need of pleasure only when we are in pain and when we are not in pain then we no longer need pleasure. And this is why we say that pleasure is the starting point and goal of living happily. For we recognized this as our first innate good, and this is our starting point for every choice and avoidance and we come to this by judging every good by the criterion of feeling (Epicurus, 1994, pp. 128–129).

The freedom from pain, which is, as we have seen, in itself a pleasant state, consists in the lack of pain in the body––aponia––and the non-disturbance of the soul, a state Epicurus called the tranquillity of the mind––ataraxia––(Epicurus, 1994, p. 131). This state is also called static pleasure, because it is thought to arise from the stable atomic structure of our souls. The kinetic pleasures are thought to be less important, because they rely on the actual motion of the atoms and are temporary. This idea made Epicurus emphasize ‘untroubledness’ over the less important positive pleasures, although this static state could be achieved or varied by short-term––kinetic––pleasures of stimulation. The kinetic pleasures have a bodily and a mental version. Mental pleasures can also consist in reliving past kinetic pleasures or anticipating future ones and can outweigh present pains.

Epicurus insists that one should trust one’s feelings. This, however, does not imply that the accumulation of new instant pleasures increases happiness beyond what is achieved when all pain has gone (Epicurus, 1994, p. xviii). Thus the pursuit of luxury does not increase pleasure. What it can do is enlarge your desires, make you run the risk of becoming dependent on them and thus make you vulnerable to the whims of fortune. This implies that one sometimes has to pass up some pleasures in order to get a greater pleasure, and that many pains are better than some pleasures if a greater pleasure follows by enduring those pains (Epicurus, 1994, p. 129). To maximize pleasure one therefore has to calculate the relative roles of bodily and mental, static and kinetic pleasures. Epicurus was an ‘unimpeachable ascetic who taught that “genuine pleasure” was not “the pleasure of profligates,” but rather the simple satisfaction of a mind and body at peace’ (McMahon, 2004, p. 11).

Epicurus’ happiness philosophy is hedonistic in the sense that he equates the old Greek concept of happiness––eudaimonia––with pleasure––hêdone. Pleasure is the starting-point and the goal of living happily (Epicurus, 1994, p. 128). Life is pleasurable when the mind is free from fears and the body is content with natural satisfactions. You can achieve this state of happiness if you accept the four basic truths of Epicureanism, the so-called ‘four-part cure’ (Philodemus of Gardara, cited in Epicurus (1994, p. vii)):

The good, happy and pleasurable life Epicurus promises us when we will follow his advice cannot be achieved without the study of philosophy. He also identifies some virtues that contribute to our happiness, among which prudence is the most important. He indicates friendship and justice as two important features that provide us security which he identifies as a natural good (Epicurus, 1994, p. vii).

Epicurus tried to shelter his followers from the Hellenistic world of his times in which the old securities were gone. He started a mini-society––the Garden––and many of his followers lived in similar communes. The organization of the Garden was hierarchical and Epicurus was the only one who was awarded the title ‘wise man’. He strove to create a secure and comfortable atmosphere through friendship. The association between members of the Garden was freer than was usual in other schools, and members did not have to give up their private properties (Jones, 1989, pp. 20–21). Epicurus recognized that happiness is enhanced in social conditions that provide security and allow most autonomy/freedom (Veenhoven, 2002, p. 21).

Although living in the Garden provided a relatively safe, protected life with a full stomach, it is another thing to say that isolating yourself in such a commune is a wise idea. Living in a hierarchical community limits the freedom of choice for its members, for important choices in life are already taken on the basis of the philosophical doctrine of the commune. An example is that active political involvement in the outside world is strongly discouraged. The commune therefore does not encourage the members to make their own choices in life, which appears to be crucial aspects of the multiple-choice societies that enhance happiness (Veenhoven, 1999). To follow a path in life that is prescribed by a leader of a commune, implies that the individual members do not give an autonomous evaluation of all aspects of their own living conditions. Instead, the commune makes important choices for them to assure harmony within the commune. If all individuals would think for themselves and pursue their own ideas of happiness, heterogeneity, disagreement and conflict would result and the concept of the ideal, hierarchical community is threatened. This is what Crombag and Van Dun (1997) call an ‘utopic paradox’. Happiness is the positive evaluation of one’s life as a whole, but living in a commune makes it impossible to make this evaluation autonomous. The members cannot decide for themselves what is best for them. One problem with this position is that it did not allow Epicurus to pay proper attention to personality differences. For example, it is easy to imagine that somebody high on sensation-seeking who likes to live on the edge will not be happy with the tranquility that Epicurus envisioned in his Garden. So living conditions in the Garden may have been favourable and Epicurus an enlightened ruler, but the resulting happiness of the members lacked an essential ingredient: the individualistic evaluation of living conditions and the freedom of choice that is based on these individual preferences.

Not only the quality of society matters; also the position one has in a society is of influence on happiness. Intimate personal relationships with a partner and friends are strongly correlated with happiness (e.g. Headey & Wearing, 1992). The many findings on these matters are gathered in the WDH, sections M 1–4 (marriage), F 1–3 (family), F 6 (friends). Epicurus recognized how important personal relations are. He valued affective relationships very much, and in particular friendships.

‘Friendship dances around the world announcing to all of us that we must wake up to blessedness’ (Epicurus, 1994, p. 52).

Epicurus valued friendship above marital relationship. Note, however, that Epicurus may have had a higher opinion of marriage as it is in the modern age, because partner relationships nowadays are more often based on the friendship between equals.

The existing data suggest that marriage is more important than friendship for modern readers. The correlations between happiness and being married (M 2) tend to be stronger than the correlations between happiness and contacts with friends (F 6). Likewise, married women without a close friend were found to be happier than unmarried people with a close friend (Ventegodt, 1996, p. 170). One can conclude that Epicurus may have placed too much emphasis on generic friendship and at the expense of specific marital ties.

The data indicate that happiness is served by specificity in social bonding. Kamp Dush and Amato (2005) describe in a large sample of Americans under the age of 55, that on average married people are happier than cohabiting people, cohabiting people are happier than the ones that are steady dating, steady dating people are happier than multiple daters, and the multiple daters are happier than the non-daters. However, this does not mean that Epicurus is not right. His point is that the disadvantages of marriage are greater than the satisfactions. In modern terms this implies that it is too risky to be dependent on specific desires (a spouse), because of the pain that marital conflict, divorce or widowhood would bring. We have already seen that the married are happier than unmarried, so they can live with average marital conflict, but we should also weigh the yields of marriage against the costs of divorce and widowhood. We will do that in a paragraph below.

Epicurus regarded health of the body as one of the most important determinants of happiness, but he placed even more emphasis on the health of the soul. When the mind is free of disturbance then the pains of the body are endurable, and do not have to affect our happiness. We can learn to push back pains and discomfort through mental pleasures.

Epicurus’ remarks about this subject fit modern findings on the relationship between happiness and health. Health is strongly related to happiness, in particular self-rated health. ‘The impact of health on happiness depends for a great part on the individual’s perception of the situation’ (Diener et al., 1999, p. 287). This links up with the finding that happiness is more strongly related to mental health than to physical health (WDH Sections M 7 and P 6). Or, as Epicurus would have put it, a mind free of disturbance would not only enhance physical health, but would also help to deal with the hardships of sickness. We can still be happy when our physical condition is not good.

The above-mentioned findings give an impression of the strengths and the weaknesses for present day conditions of Epicurus’ advice. Still, it can be argued that this is not the essential part of his happiness advice. His central idea is that one should not seek happiness in specific living conditions, but that one should be able to achieve happiness regardless of external conditions. He stimulates internal coping. To evaluate this position, we will consider it in the light of modern psychology.

Happiness is the Chief Good in Epicurus’ philosophy, but it is important to note that he does not value positive affect all that much. Happiness is conceived as absence of pain, but even the pain is not that important, because he states that the severest pains are easy to endure. Epicurus’ hedonism has strong stoic or ascetic tendencies. Parducci (1995, pp. 17–18) comments: Epicurus’ ‘position was to establish an ascetic detachment from material conditions so as to minimize the pain of their loss. Although Epicurus claimed that a man could be happy even in a rack, it is not clear that he believed genuine happiness to be possible’.

The position of Epicurus is difficult to judge, because of the seeming inconsistency of his remarks that pleasure is the same as the absence of pain and the idea that pain is easy to bear. Our interpretation is that Epicurus placed pleasure and pain on a continuum and that a person can experience either positive or negative affect. However he also recognized that people reflect on their affective experience and that this meta-appraisal can make a difference. This interpretation makes it possible to highlight several strengths and weaknesses of his happiness advice.

Epicurus was probably wrong with his idea about the continuum of positive and negative affect. Pleasure and pain are registered independently from each other in our brains (e.g. Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999). Pain relief and the escape from expected pain leads to positive affect (e.g. Frijda, 1988; Lazarus, 1991), but continuous absence of pain does not necessarily lead to happy tranquillity, but can also be boring. Headey and Wearing (1992) describe the fact that a significant minority of people have low levels of psychological distress and are unhappy at the same time. Csikszentmihaly (1999) states that happiness results from optimal functioning that can be found between boredom and anxiety. These findings contradict Epicurus’ notion of happiness as mere absence of pain. Epicurus’ happiness advice does not cater for exhilarating aspects of a business man’s life that involves risks and losses but also makes one live to the full and be happy on balance. He also did not think of anhedonia, the inability to experience emotion, that is characteristic of people with a depressive disorder. This condition is often more difficult to bear than emotional pain itself. Happiness is definitely something other than the mere absence of all pain (Bergsma, 1995).

Headey and Wearing (1992, pp. 4–8) also notice that some people are happy despite the fact that they experience high levels of psychological distress. People often perceive life as both quite satisfying and quite stressful. This goes against Epicurus’ idea that happiness can be equated with absence of pain. Still, the combination of high distress with happiness can be reconciled with Epicurus’ philosophy, because of his idea that we can learn to tolerate pain.

The independence of positive and negative affect has two consequences for Epicurus’ position. His notion that avoiding pain is sufficient for establishing a good quality of life may be too conservative. The second consequence is that he neglected the role of positive affect. We start with a discussion of his ideas to avoid pain.

Epicurus’ idea that we should not want too much is a consequence of his tendency to avoid the risk of pain. Strong desires can make us miserable if we have to live without the objects of our desires. Epicurus’ idea not to indulge seems to be fruitful. Csikszentmihaly (1999) praises Epicurus because his philosophy encourages people to defer gratifications. Epicurus claimed that all pain was evil, but that we should not avoid pain, when this saves us more pain in the long run. The same is true for pleasures. All pleasures are good, but we should not indulge if the pleasures harm us in the long run.

Moderation in pleasures turns out to be successful in terms of happiness. Headey and Wearing (1992, pp. 92–93) show that such a pleasure-hunting lifestyle fails in the long run. The purely hedonistic way of life often means that people fail to maintain intimate relationships, whereas such relationships form a great source of happiness.

The question is whether Epicurus emphasized deferring gratifications too much. He favoured a serene life with the motto: “If a little is not enough for you, nothing is.” There are three ways to evaluate this position. The first is a discussion of the limits of willpower, the second focuses on the optimal level of openness to pleasurable experiences and the third is a discussion of the merits of modest aspirations. We start with willpower.

Though there is certainly a point in moderation, Epicurus has overstated that case. Possibly he did so in his role as a teacher. Exaggerating the dangers of hedonism may be the best way to counter possible side effects. But the idea that Epicurus made a mistake for educational purposes does not seem to be the whole story. The way Epicurus thought about happiness as the opposite of pain, made him think too easily about positive affect. It was something that would happen to you more or less automatically if you were in the right frame of mind. He cognitively explained away the fears for the gods and death and added: ‘what is good is easy to get.’ This is why Epicurus advises readers to be too passive in their pursuit of happiness. Annas (1993, p. 198) puts it like this: ‘Epicurean happiness is bought at the price of adjusting the agent too thoroughly to the world, that is too passive a conception of human life.’ In contemporary life data suggest that happiness is better served with active involvement in society. We not only want a mind that is free of disturbance, but we also have the possibility to try to control the interaction with the environment so that we can change our (view of the) world so that it better suits our preferences.

Fredrickson’s (1998, 2001) ‘broaden-and-build’ theory of positive affect gives a theoretical underpinning of this idea. Her first key position is that positive affect broadens the individual’s momentary mindset, and she urges one to play, explore and to integrate in social networks. These activities build the resources of the individual for they lead to the discovery of novel and creative ideas and stronger social bonds.

The importance of positive affect is underlined in several empirical studies and analyse. Positive affect stimulates health and longevity (Danner, Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001; Pressman & Cohen, 2005), finding meaning in life (King, Hicks, Krull, & Del Gaiso, 2006), taking advantage of unforeseen opportunities (Carver, 2003) and also leads to success. Positive affect promotes sociability and activity, altruism, liking of self and others, effective conflict resolution skills and perhaps original thinking (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). It is a serious omission that Epicurus neglects the constructive aspects of positive affect. Happiness is better served by a full life with pleasure, meaning and engagement (Peterson et al., 2005), than with an empty life that focuses primarily on avoiding pain.

There is one aspect of the ‘four basic truths’ that escapes the analysis in the paragraphs above. The statement that ‘what is terrible is easy to endure’ adds a dimension to Epicurus philosophy, that fits in with the spiritual tradition that places greater emphasis not on an emotional high, but on a state of peace, tranquillity and understanding (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Epicurus four-part cure has three remarks on coping with pain (fear of Gods, death and terrible pain) and all three boil down to the idea that it is not necessary to lose emotional equilibrium over these stressors. Above we have noted that Epicurus does not stimulate people enough to actively pursue happiness, but it is another matter when he offers wisdom in dealing with hardships.

The first thing to notice is that Epicurus’ advice focuses on the hardest parts of existence. Death, disease, terrible pain, the impossibility of changing the past and ill fate (the gods) are mentioned explicitly. These stressors have in common that they are unchangeable. Efforts to change the event itself will only yield frustration and desperation. Persons have to find a way to cope with this difficult psychological content. The direct approach to this is to try to change the frequency or intensity of these difficult thoughts and feelings. There are certainly occasions where this works. Abbe, Tkach, and Lyubomirsky (2003) claim that dispositionally happy persons use distraction successfully in dealing with problems. But sometimes the attempts to escape make things worse. For example, avoidance seems to be at the heart of several forms of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders (Abueg, Follette, & Ruzek, 2001). The efforts to change one’s negative feelings can make them stronger (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002).

Annas (1993) describes Epicurus’ philosophy as being risk aversive. It is better to avoid pain than to indulge in pleasures. In the paragraphs above we concluded on the basis of a mixture of theoretical and empirical arguments that this position is too strict. Still this exercise is not completely convincing from an Epicurean point of view, for the philosopher does not argue that plain bread is just as tasty as lobster, but that the preference for lobster causes problems if one becomes dependent on it, in that life might take such a turn that a person has to live without it. In a similar vein, he argues that marriage may involve pleasures, but that these are not sufficient to compensate for the inconveniences. For a modern reader the inconveniences would translate as marital conflict, divorce or widowhood. In other words, it is in Epicurus’ view that the lifetime benefits of marriage do not weight up against its costs and one can better abstain from marriage. In this section we will check whether this claim applies today. It is established that married people are typically happier than the unmarried⁴ but that among the unmarried the never married are happier than previously married but divorced or widowed people (e.g. Glenn & Weaver, 1988; Peters & Liefbroer, 1997; Waite, 1995). Clark and Oswald (2002) translated the experience of life-events relating to partnerships into a monetary ‘compensation amount’. In their calculation, marriage has a happiness value of £70.000 a year, and widowhood could be compensated with a monetary sum of £170,000 a year. In other words, you have to stay married for 3 years to compensate for 1 year of widowhood. Evidently, those figures are biased because they are derived from reactions to life changes, and it is known that people have amazing ability to adjust to adverse circumstances and that happiness tends to return to baseline level in time (e.g. Headey & Wearing, 1992; Suh, Diener, & Fujita, 1996).

Following Epicurus warnings we should consider the number of years that people spend in each type of marital status. If people who marry are likely to spend a long period of life divorced or widowed, this could have a substantial effect on their overall happiness. In order to evaluate this issue we use the concept of ‘happy life years’ (HLY), as introduced by Veenhoven (1996). This concept is defined as the number of happy years a person is expected to live. It is calculated by multiplying the number of years a person is expected to live by a happiness weight factor for each of these years. This weight factor will vary with the marital status. Mathematically, this could be expressed as

where HLY is the number of Happy Life Years, P is a vector of possible states that a person can occupy, Y_p is the number of years a person lives in state P, and H_p is the happiness weight factor attached to state P.

In order to estimate the number of HLY over the life time, decisions have to be taken on (a) the number of positions P that should be distinguished, (b) the number of years people spend in each of these positions, and (c) the calculation of the happiness weights that are attached to each of the positions. We will discuss each of these three issues in turn.

Most research on the relationship between happiness and marital status compares the happiness of married people with those of the never married, divorced and widowed. This does not take into account the increasing complexity of partner relationships. As a result of the increasing popularity of unmarried cohabitation, living apart together, divorce, and remarriage, people often occupy a diversity of positions during their life course. Since we are not able to take all this potential complexity into account, we make a distinction between five possible marital statuses: (a) never married, (b) first marriage, (c) divorced or separated, (d) remarried (e) widowed. We do not differentiate formal and informal marriage. The latter phenomenon has gained popularity in many Western countries during the last few decades and the relation with happiness is similar (Peters & Liefbroer, 1997). The second thing to notice is that we make a distinction between people in their first ‘marriage’ and people in their ‘second marriage’. This is done because well-being in a second marriage is often lower than in a first marriage (Kurdek, 1990; Peters & Liefbroer, 1997). The next question is then what part of their lives people spend in each of these five states. In our opinion, it does not make sense to calculate this for the ‘average’ person. Rather, one would want to describe different marital careers. In Table 1, we present six common marital careers in present day Dutch society. The first life course type is that of the never married and exemplifies the advice of Epicurus to shun marriage. Life course types II and III are typical for people who marry and do not divorce. For half of the partners these unions will be dissolved by the death of the spouse. Life course types IV, V, and VI exemplify the varied experiences of people who experience divorce or separation. Some will not remarry (type IV), some will remarry and live with their new partner until death (type V) and some will remarry and experience the death of their second spouse (type VI). Evidently, some life courses will be more complicated than the six we have outlined here. However, these will only constitute a very small minority of all life courses.

For each of these six life course types one would like to know at what average age transitions between marital statuses occur and what proportion of the population experience each of the six life courses. This is problematic given that life courses differ strongly between cohorts. Here, we try to solve this issue by constructing synthetic life courses (Willekens, 1999). Based on period-specific information, we estimate how life courses would evolve if the occurrence and timing of partner-related events that is observed in recent years would continue into the future. We made estimates based on two sources: officially published data of Statistics Netherlands, and survey data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) (Dykstra et al., 2005). In the first wave of the NKPS, information on life courses was collected from more than 8,000 persons, forming a representative sample of the Dutch population of age 15 and over. In Table 2, estimates of the average ages at which specific transitions occur are presented, whereas in Table 3 the distribution of the population across the six life course types is presented.⁵ Given that the ages at which men and women experience family-related life events differ quite substantially, these calculations are performed separately for men and women.

The final issue concerns the estimation of the happiness weights that need to be attached to each partner status position. To estimate these weights we used an abridged version of the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale that has been used in the NKSP. This version contains five items: three about negative affect and two about positive affect (Dykstra et al., 2005). We considered the questions about positive affect (feeling happy and composed and calm) and negative affect (feeling nervous, depressed and miserable and dejected) to be equally important. Therefore we used the answer to the question about happiness twice. We added the three positive scores and subtracted the negative ones and translated this score to a scale of zero to one.⁶ Table 4 presents the average happiness scores for each marital status position. These scores are in line with results from earlier research. Happiness scores are highest for those in their first marriage, followed by the remarried. Scores are substantially lower for the never married, the divorced and the widowed. In addition, happiness is lower among women. This is particularly true for happiness among married and remarried women, mirroring the fact that the gains from marriage are smaller for women than for men.

Using the information from Tables 2 and 4, the number of HLY from age 18 onwards was calculated for each life course type. In Table 5 the results from this calculation are presented, again separately for men and women. From Table 5, it is clear that the preferable life course in terms of the number of HLY is to live with one spouse until death. Compared to people who never lived with a partner, the difference in HLY is more than six years for men and more than 4 years for women. This result clearly contradicts Epicurus’ advice that it is best to refrain from marriage altogether. At the same time, Epicurus is right that marital break-up, either by divorce or widowhood leads to a reduction in HLY. Still, for all people who experienced marital break-up (Types III to VI), the number of HLY is at least equal to that of the never married. Only among people who experience a divorce and do not remarry, is HLY about equal to the HLY of the never married. From these results, it seems safe to conclude that Epicurus’ skepticism about marriage is not warranted. In present day society at least, the gains in happiness are greater than the costs. The desire for a partner cannot be classified as ‘natural and unnecessary’.

In addition, comparing the HLY of men and women allow some interesting observations. First of all, it can be noted that the HLY of each life course type is higher for women than for men. This suggests that the higher life expectancy of women compensates for the lower level of happiness per year. Although women are less happy than men in almost every partner status, the final HLY are higher because they live longer than men. Second, the HLY of men and women following the most common life course type (type II for men and type III for women) hardly differ at all. In that sense, it seems that the lifetime happiness of men and women following the modal life course for their sex is more or less the same. Third, the difference in HLY between types I and II is smaller for women than for men. This results from two facts: women gain less happiness from marriage than men and the difference in life expectancy between the never married and the married is smaller for women than for men. Still, even women seem well advised not to pay too much attention to the teachings of Epicurus regarding family life.

Finally, we would like to point out some of the limitations of this empirical exercise. A first limitation is that we did not differentiate happiness within partner statuses, for instance by age or by duration since the start of the status. It seems unlikely, however, that refining the analysis in this respect would yield results that are substantially different from the ones presented here.⁷

Another limitation is that we constructed synthetic life courses. It does not reflect the life course of specific cohorts, but rather assumes that patterns observed in the present time will hold for the future as well. Evidently, that will not necessarily be true. For instance, it might well be that the proportion of marriages ending in divorce will increase. If so, more people will follow life course types IV, V and VI, shifting the HLY of the total population downwards. A third issue relates to selection and causality. For example, it is reasonable to expect that selection processes partly determine who will get married and who will stay single all of their lives. Some of the people who stay unmarried may be selective on characteristics that increase the chances of unhappiness. If so, the impact of life events on HLY is overestimated. However, research has shown that marriage has a substantial protective effect, suggesting that even after controlling for selection, some differences in HLY between life course types would remain (Brockmann & Klein, 2004; Lillard & Waite, 1995).

A final limitation is that the analysis is about the average person. For specific individuals the costs of marriage may exceed the benefits, as seems to be the case in low quality marriages (Hawking & Booth, 2005). These limitations notwithstanding, we believe that the analyses presented give added weight to our conclusion that Epicurus too rigidly advised people to be passive in life, for all he wanted them to do is to avoid pain. Sometimes it is better to go for specific pleasures as well.