Statistics article

Lies, Damned Lies and...

You’ve all heard it. Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. What a horrible statistic! And all that “news” about “the rising divorce rate”, well, it’s distressing. The end of marriage as we know it!

Thankfully, it isn’t true.

In the United States in 2003 there were 7.5 new marriages per 1000 people and 3.8 divorces per 1000 people. This figure has remained pretty steady since the late 1960’s. That sounds like about half but, as many statisticians have tried to point out over the years, almost none of the marriages taking place in a given year are the same couples that are divorcing that year, so there is in fact no predictive relationship between the two totals. But we statistically ignorant types take it at face value.

Let’s hear from an expert in statistics though. Pollster Lewis Harris in his 1987 book "Inside America" wrote that "the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times."

The New York Times in an article on April 19, 2005 found that the divorce rate peaked at about 41 percent in 1980 and has been slowly declining ever since. By 2002 it had fallen to 31 percent. They found this data the right way, by tracking a statistically significant percentage of all marriages over several decades.

And even that much more optimistic number is misleading. Note that it tracks all marriages. In any statistical field, there are what I like to call “curve busters”. If you want to determine the average income for people in the United States, people like Bill Gates have an inordinate impact on the average. Well, when you try to determine the average divorce rate, you have Elizabeth Taylor. She has been divorced seven times so far. Multiple divorcees skew the average quite a bit. Because of this, the odds of a first marriage ending in divorce is significantly lower than the odds for all marriages. Statistically speaking, the people like my mother and father (who stayed married until my father passed) or my lovely wife and myself (who plan to do the same and are 21 years along) don’t have a chance against Liz and her many spouses. But Ms. Taylor’s bad luck or bad judgment doesn’t affect our marriage one bit.

Nor does it affect yours.

Marriage in this country is doing just fine. The divorce rate is falling and life spans are rising so we are staying married longer than ever. Statistically speaking it’s a wonderful time to be married in America!

But, these facts, as happy as they may be, don’t affect your marriage either. We hear a lot about “the institution of marriage” these days. That makes it sound like all the marriages that exist form one big amorphous group. That anything that happens to any marriage affects all marriages. This isn’t the case. The “institution” of marriage is a myth, a pie in the sky. It's something that people refer to when they don't want to bother with reality. What is real is each individual marriage, they are what matter.

Your marriage is only affected by what the two of you invest in it. It doesn’t matter if everyone else gets a divorce or if nobody gets one. If another marriage is happy or unhappy. What matters is what the two of you do. And, you know what you should do. Don’t let a day go by without showing your spouse how much you really love them. Work on it. Invest some time in it. Trust me, this marriage thing is worth the effort. And the two of you are the only ones that can make it work. And, statistically speaking, the odds are with you.

Richard