Research
from the University of Utah finds that there's a relationship between a woman's
number of sexual partners and her likelihood of divorce – but not the one you'd
think. Women with only one partner prior to marrying their husbands were most
likely to divorce, and only in recent years is higher premarital promiscuity
linked with higher divorce rates.
Perhaps it's the vestiges of our puritanical beginnings, but to
this day in North America men still tend to consider a woman's sexual past
when evaluating her fitness for marriage. Virginity is still highly valued (by
some more so than others) and by no means does any man want to think about his
partner having been around the block.
But given the relative ubiquity of nonmarital sex, most men are
comfortable settling with "as few partners as possible". According to new research, however, not only is that
not a reliable indicator of a lasting marriage, in some cases it
correlates with a higher likelihood
of divorce.
Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor in the University of Utah
Department of Family and Consumer Studies, looked at the five-year divorce rate
for over 10,000 women, and tracked them against their (self-reported) number of
sexual partners prior to the marriage. He then broke them into cohorts based on
the decade in which the marriage occurred, where trends started to emerge.
Namely, virgin brides are more committed than ever, but the
worst possible scenario is if she only had one single sexual partner before
you. To explain this, we need two charts: the breakdown of women's sexual
partners, and then their divorce rate by cohort.
“Overall, American women are far more likely to have had multiple
premarital sex partners in recent years,” Wolfinger said. “As premarital sex became
more acceptable, it’s reasonable to anticipate that its negative effects on
marital stability waned.
"In general, Americans became more accepting of nonmarital
sex. Certainly fewer men entered marriage with the expectation of a virgin
bride. All of the fanfare associated with hooking up is evidence that some
young people have become comfortable with the idea of sex outside of serious
relationships.” We can only imagine this applies to the UK, too.
Breaking it down into chunks, the first interesting bit of data
is that women who marry as virgins now are even less likely to divorce now
as they were in the 70s. Wolfinger doesn't say why, but my guess is that given
the acceptance of nonmarital sex, there are fewer virgin brides now than ever.
It would follow, then, that the ones who hold out until their wedding night are
doing so for reasons far more powerful than simple social norms.
What about the other end of the spectrum, the growing likelihood
of divorce among women with 10+ partners? On the surface, it doesn't make sense
– if nonmarital sex is more accepted, why the rise of divorce among women
with more partners as time goes by?
Well, women in the past with that many partners may have wanted to divorce, but
it was less of an option. Also noteworthy: given the small sample size of the
2010s cohort, the 33% divorce rate for women with 10+ partners is not
statistically significant compared to the 30% rate for women with two partners.
But what about the strange outlier, the fact that divorce rates
for women with two total partners (counting her husband) remains high across
all decades? Wolfinger seems to think it has to do with comparisons
(unfavourable ones, presumably).
“In short: if you're going to have comparisons to your [future]
husband, it's best to have more than one,” he said.
The research was funded by the Institute for Family Studies, a
nonprofit whose self-proclaimed mission is "strengthening
marriage and family life." Despite the claim that having more sex
partners increases the chance of divorce, even they're forced to admit:
"That said, this research brief paints a fairly complicated
picture of the association between sex and marital stability that ultimately
raises more questions than it answers."
Huh, it's almost as if it really doesn't matter at all.
Source: askmen.com
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