Younger Marriage = Less Divorce?

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, President of NC Family and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program. It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will feel better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation. And now here is our host of Family Policy Matters, Tracey Devette Griggs. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. The current philosophy in the U.S. is to live together first and to get married later in life, all in hopes of avoiding divorce.

But a new report flies in the face of that thinking. The Religious Marriage Paradox, Younger Marriage, Less Divorce looks at age, religiosity and cohabitation for clues on when to marry and have the best chance of avoiding divorce. Well, we're joined today by one of the report's authors, Dr. Bradford Wilcox. He's director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, senior fellow of the Institute for Family Studies and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Brad Wilcox. Welcome back to Family Policy Matters.

Great to be with you here today. All right, so let's talk first about cohabitation. I've heard even Christian parents, unbelievably, endorsing living together for their kids, especially if that parent has had some difficulty in their own marriage. But looking at the research, what do we know about the actual impact of cohabitation on the chances of a long marriage? Well, you know, I think the surprising thing for a lot of young adults today is that when you cohabit prior to marriage, particularly to be blunt with more than one person, your odds of getting divorced are higher and your odds of having marital problems are also markedly higher as well. So something about cohabitation, which seems to be a risk factor for marriage when many of those days think that it's a good way to prepare for, you know, a strong marriage down the road.

Right. So another common misconception is that waiting to get married will decrease the risk of divorce. Does the data back up that theory? A lot of young adults today also think that kind of waiting until you're about 30 to get married is the smart move.

And so as we kind of looked at this issue, Lyman Stone and I, Lyman Stone is a demographer now based at McGill University in Canada. What we found was that young adults who got married in their 20s without cohabiting ended up having the most stable marriages and actually focusing on a large sample of young women in this particular research. And so the kind of takeaway here is that we call direct marriage, that is getting married without cohabiting seems to be a pathway towards greater marital stability. And this is true for young women getting married in their 20s kind of across the board.

So you could be 23, you could be 28. But if you got married without cohabiting first, your odds of being stably married were remarkably higher. And I should also mention too on the marital happiness side of the equation, other research done suggests that sort of having fewer sexual partners prior to marriage is linked to happier marriages as well. So that kind of suggests to me that kind of getting married in your 20s without cohabiting and without having multiple partners prior to marriage looks like the pathway towards a strong and stable marriage in America today. And that's, I think, surprising to a lot of my students at UVA. Because, you know, they would sort of think that kind of having a variety of partners cohabiting, you know, waiting to about 30 would kind of maximize your odds for marital success.

But our research doesn't back that assumption up. Your study was kind of three prongs, right? So first was cohabitation. Second was age of getting married. The third had to do with the religiosity of the people getting married, and their likelihood of divorce.

Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, so I think what wouldn't surprise me about this particular story is we didn't find like a real strong religious effect per se when it came to sort of separating out, you know, religion, cohabitation, age at marriage. So what I'm saying is that what we're finding is that for young adults who are getting married in their 20s without cohabiting, if they're religious, if they're not religious, they tended to do about as well. What's important, though, to sort of caveat that is to mention that it was the religiously raised in adults who are much more likely to not cohabit and to marry directly in their 20s. So what it looked like in this particular study is that being kind of from a community of faith, maximize your odds of getting married in your 20s, and minimize your odds of cohabiting, both of which were linked to stronger marriages in this research.

Interesting. So what you're saying is that as long as you follow the first two principles of not cohabitating, and not necessarily waiting late or to get married, you can still take advantage of the benefits whether you're religious or not. Right. Although it's important to note here that other research, including my own work by Tyler van der Weel, Harvard indicates that sort of in general, for instance, attending religious services regularly, you know, reduces your odds of divorce between about 30 and 50%. So kind of there's a broader body of work that's been done, that indicates that people who are kind of engaged in religious community are more likely to avoid landing in divorce. Gotcha. So like most things, it's a good idea to look at this study in context of all the wider studies. So that's right.

Yeah, good point. What connection is there between or should there be, I guess, between religiosity and cohabitation? Are we drawing that conclusion appropriately in the Christian community? Well, we certainly see that cohabitation is less common among religious Americans, but still, as you just, you know, noted earlier, happening in many religious communities and contexts. And so I think there's a challenge for clergy and for lay leaders when it comes to cohabitation, explaining what seems like a great idea in terms of testing, you know, the relationship for marriage actually doesn't work particularly well. And I guess in gender is a kind of more qualified commitment to like this idea that if things don't work out, you know, I can always leave this relationship and then that kind of carries over into the marriage and sort of not being all in to your marriage, you know, not being all in terms of commitment towards your spouse.

That's a real problem. So we think that cohabitation tends to sort of reduce commitment. And then of course, too, if you've covered more than one partner, it seems to kind of engender a spirit of critical comparison, where you're comparing your spouse to some kind of other partner you've lived with, and no spouse is perfect. Probably on some dimension, your spouse is not going to measure up as well as a previous cohabiting partner.

And that can kind of be corrosive for the quality and stability of marriage down the road as well. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC family works to educate and inform citizens across North Carolina about policy issues that impact North Carolina families. Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished. For more information about NC family and how you can help us to achieve this incredible vision for our state and nation, visit our website at ncfamily.org. Again, that's ncfamily.org. And be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts, and of course, our flagship publication Family North Carolina magazine.

We'd also love for you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. What kind of lessons does this have for parents and grandparents? What can we do, as we're watching these young people navigate a very difficult culture, by the way, for dating and finding someone to marry?

What kind of influence do you think that we can have on this younger generation? So I think the key idea here is you want to encourage them to pursue friendship. And when they think that there is a decent chance of, you know, finding a spouse to encourage them to move forward with that friendship. And if they feel like there's a sense of connection, a variety of levels, they share commitment to common faith, for instance, a common worldview, for instance, and other things that would be the basis for a strong marital friendship. You know, I think then to kind of give them permission to go ahead with marriage.

And again, that could be someone who's 22, that could be someone who's 28, it could be someone who's 35. But kind of given the research that we're kind of presenting recently, sort of suggesting that cohabiting is not a good way to prepare for marriage, it's better to just kind of pursue other opportunities to get to know someone volunteering, for instance, at a Boys and Girls Club, or, you know, Habitat for Humanity. So what I am saying is kind of doing tough things, difficult things, with someone you're dating to kind of sort of get a sense of their character and their virtues and vices, but not actually moving in with them, because that tends to raise some questions about commitment. And also, I think it makes the actual transition to marriage less special, less exceptional. I was talking to, for instance, a couple in New York City, who had not cohabited prior to marriage, and they said that, you know, when they got married, everything was kind of magical, you know, they did sort of their first dinner together in the apartment, their first Christmas decorations. And they said, by contrast, their friends who had cohabited prior to marriage were much more like, oh, this is kind of ho-hum, you know, like, there wasn't really like a special transition for their friends who had cohabited prior to marriage.

So by not cohabiting, it made that sort of their transition into marriage, you know, crossing that threshold, that much more special and exciting, which I think will serve them out long term. You know, you really are painting a picture that is so much different than the hookup culture, which I think dominates the dating culture right now from what I've been reading. Is this like an old fashioned thing? Or is it realistic that young people can go after dating and finding an appropriate spouse in this way?

That's a great question. And I think we're not going to create a courtship culture, a dating culture that is reminiscent of the way things were when my grandparents were coming of age, you know, in the 30s and 40s. But I think it is incumbent upon us to, you know, try to figure out newer ways to foster relationships in person, to cultivate friendships between men and women who are in their, you know, in their 20s and to encourage them, you know, where they kind of sensing some kind of connection with someone to kind of build on that. You know, in general, if you can sort of steer clear of dating apps, particularly things like Tinder, and rely upon opportunities to get to know people in person, whether it's in church, or in college, or at work, or, you know, at a local nonprofit volunteering, and that's gonna give you a much, I think, richer portrait of someone than just sort of looking at a series of images on a small screen. Okay, so let's go back to the, let's get back to the to the study.

Can you unpack that a little bit? You gave us some generalities on what you found. But how stark are the differences? What kind of stats are we talking about between cohabiting and not and marrying later or not? So what we see in this kind of research, and we're looking at kind of like an annual probability of divorce is that, so for instance, someone who's getting married around 25, would have about three and a half percent chance of divorce, if they get directly married in their 20s without cohabiting. In contrast, someone who is not religious, and has, you know, cohabited prior to their relationship has about a sort of four and a half percent chance of divorce. That's about a 28% increased risk for someone who gets married around 30, and has cohabited prior to marriage. And that's a kind of a market difference here.

Sure is good information. I know you already mentioned this a little bit, but what's the sweet spot? Do you think when is the best time to get married?

If you have that choice? I think what's important to stress, first of all, here is just that the key is to sort of take some time to get to know people, and to look for friendship that covers a variety of different bases. And that would be things like your faith, your worldview, but also other things to kind of, you know, things that you share as a couple that will kind of sustain you as friends over the course of your life.

So it could be sports, it could be politics, it could be hiking, could be any number of things. It could be kind of, you know, the basis for a strong marital friendship. But what we are saying, I think, in this research is if you meet that person when you're 23, there's no reason you can't get married, you know, when you're 24 or 25. Or, you know, if you meet that person when you're 27, you can get married when you're 28 or 29. So that's the kind of, I think, key takeaway. But of course, some people are not going to meet that kind of person until they're 30 or 31, or even 35. And so if that's, you know, the case, that's fine. But I think the key takeaway here is giving people permission. To marry someone in their 20s, so long as they've kind of done more work to make sure there's the basis for a strong marital friendship going forward.

We're just about out of time for this week. Before we go, Brad Wilcox, where can our listeners go to read your report and follow all your other great research? Our report is available at Family Studies. And the title in this case is The Religious Marriage Paradox, Younger Marriage, Lest Divorce.

If you type that in on Google, you'll come right up to our website. Thank you so much, Dr. Brad Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. Thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me here today.

Music You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to this show online and to learn more about NC Families work to inform, encourage and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family.