It’s often said that married couples have a ‘strong’ relationship, and now it seems that this strength may actually be physical.

A new study by researchers from UCL has revealed that married people are physically stronger than singletons, Mirror says.

Dr Natasha Wood, who led the study, said: “We know from previous research that married people live longer and report better physical and mental health, but there is limited evidence on the association between marriage and physical capability.

“Much of the advantage that married people have is because they are, on average, wealthier than those who are not married and greater wealth has been linked with better physical capability.”

In the study, the researchers measured physical capability of over 20,000 people in two ways - grip strength and walking speed.

The analysis revealed that on average, men who were in their first marriage had a 0.73 kg and 0.61 kg stronger grip than men who were widowed or never married, respectively.

Meanwhile, men in their first marriage walked or 8 cm/second faster than widowers and 11 cm/second faster than men who had never married.

Among women, those in their first marriage had a faster walking speed ranging 6 cm/second to 8 cm/second faster than unmarried women.

Interestingly, the majority of these differences disappeared once the researchers had accounted for wealth.