Graph of previous partners and likelihood of stable marriage

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I've just come across this. It shows just how likely one is to be in a stable marriage (and conversely, how likely one is to get divorced) after 10 years of marriage.

I admit it held no shock value for me, but I know it did do for a lot of people on another forum.

According to this, men who want a long term monogamous relationship pretty much have to have it with a highly religious woman who's chaste before marriage, as unless a woman has had no previous sexual partners or at the very most one, you're more likely to be divorced after 10 years than remain married.

This, folks, is the extent of unabashed infidelity nowadays.

It's from a study done by the National Council on Family Relations.

This is so biased it's not even funny. Personally, I can't marry a woman who is that much of a prude that she refuses to have sex before we get married. How am I supposed to be stuck for the rest of my life with a woman that might be horrible in bed and NOT be anxious about it? Stuck is the right word, because once you are married...that's it. You are stuck with her, and the only right you did have in your relationship is gone. Why two people would want to be stuck with each other forever is beyond my comprehension.

So what happened to the stable rates of marriage that started with 1 partner and 1 virgin groom?

Anyway, "stable" doesn't mean "happy."

The NCFR is an "Abstinence Only" organization whose only purpose is to keep kids from having sex. This "survey" was designed to that end.

This study is BIASED. In fact there are scientific studies that CONTRADICT these results.

Want to know who has the lowest divorce rate. Not people who marry early in life to their first partner, they actually have the HIGHEST divorce rate. Rather people who marry later in life to a live in partner and often had previous relationships (and also college educations between both partners).

Look at the Time magazine marriage story, it was based on a scientific study and came out recently. It directly contradicts this.

I would be VERY careful about taking anything from the Heritage foundation without some, or a lot of, skepticism. Understand that they are more than just a conservative think tank --- they are practically a paid shill/PR for the conservative right/religious POV, as well as anything Republican. I have literally seen an interview with one of their top guys from 2004 where he said, with a straight face, that "...Corporate America barely affects national policy." A blatant and cynical lie, if I have ever heard one, and a statement that undermined any credibility they might have.

Rest assured women who aren't religious are just as likely to be loyal and have long-term relationships. The real factors are the values that they were brought up under (which don't need to be tied to religion, my parents are atheist/agnostic and we learned real values as kids), their own experiences growing up, even luck of the draw (you reach a certain age where you want to be married, don't meet the right person, you settle, and then regret it), can affect one's chances of having a successful marriage.

And did that study at all take into consideration that certain segments of our population with other well-known issue are much more likely to skew the average as outliers in terms of families that aren't married and that have children out of wedlock? (I think specifically of African Americans, who currently have a 80% out-of-wedlock birth rate) Statistics need to be delved into further, you need to know more about the sample.

I second that stable doesn't always mean happy. The folks with few partners may stick with marriage more because that's all they've known or thier traditional upbringing gives them few options. All the graph shows is that people are likely to cling to what's familiar.

Noticed the percentage shot up a bit at the 21+ mark. Maybe that takes into account people who wait to get married until they really understand what they're getting into.

This has been said, but bears repeating. Consider the source of the information when you're attempting to assess the information's accuracy and possible value. This is quite obviously a right wing religious organization's attempt at rationalizing their particular dogma. It isn't even particularly Christian, as Jesus himself targeted his teachings at people who WERE promiscuous and said that anyone could be forgiven whatever they had done in the past. What would Jesus do? Not this survey I suspect.

This is a POLITICAL survey, not science. It's paid for by people in the Republican party who would like you to be outraged over the moral decline in America so you won't notice their corporation buddies are grinding every penny from you that they can by paying you less to do more work, and selling you stuff you don't really need and would probably be just as well off without.