NEW YORK, July 28, 2011 (NYDN) – Yes, divorce rates have been on the decline in the past decades. However, the Reporter-News of Abilene, TX reveals interesting insight into the contradictory nature of the divorce rates.
Reporter Scott Kirk claims that although divorce rates are dropping, marriages are not necessarily succeeding more now than they used to. According to the U.S. census, 75 percent of couples that have been married since 1990 reached their 10th anniversary. That percentage is higher than the earlier cohort’s. The evidence is clear, yet there are a few factors to consider.
First of all, today, more couples cohabitate rather than marry, so the numbers can be skewed. Also, the age of marriage has been on the steep incline in the past decades.
As of 1950, the average age of first-time marriage was 23 for men and 20 for women. As of 2010, it was 28 for men and 26 for women.
“The older average age of newlyweds would suggest more affluence and better education,” states Kirk.
Stephen Willis, a marriage counselor in Abilene, claims, “Research has shown that the more educated you are, the less likely you are to get divorced.”
Willis analyzes the success of marriages based on the age of newlyweds and has discovered that teenage marriages have an extremely low success rate. For 21 to 30-year olds, the likelihood of success increased after each year.
“After 31, it tends to level out,” explains Willis. In addition, after seven years of marriage, the chances of divorce are a lot less likely.
According to Willis, the reason why couples tend to divorce while their marriage is still fresh could be attributed to the chemical makeup of the body.
“In the first two years of a relationship, the body produced chemicals that go away after time,” Willis explains, “It’s natural. I’ll often have people come in and say, ‘I love my wife, but I’m not in love with her anymore.’ I’ll ask them what that means, and they’ll say ‘I don’t know.”
Kirk also discovered that religion may not be a factor in the declining divorce rate.
George Barna, a market researcher on religion in America, conducted a study in 2008 of 3,792 people revealing that “born again” Christians, with a 33 percent divorce rate, matched the general population. In addition, Protestants had a 34 percent divorce rate, whereas Catholics had a 28 percent divorce rate. Atheists fell in between with a divorce rate of 30 percent.
Barna also noticed that college-educated couples with household incomes over $75,000 had a divorce rate of 22 percent. Couples with incomes under $20,000 and no college educations had a divorce rate of almost 40 percent.
Willis believes that the changing attitudes within society represent the state of marriage today. Because cohabitating has “lost all its scandal,” it is not quite common to find churchgoers who have ignored religious limitations on their social lives.
“There’s a phrase today that’s used to defend anything we want to do, ‘Whatever.’”
On the other hand, Willis sees hope for marriage in the future, and says, “It’s not easy to get out of a marriage, and if you do, the standard of living for both people will drop. Some people may decide that it’s better to try to work out the problems in a marriage than get divorced.” People realize that divorce is no walk in the park, and the plunging divorce rate may signify that.