The culture of marriage

[Anonymous]

Cnsl1 wrote:

Still, the journey probably added wisdom. That’s the story I’m going with, anyway.

Good thoughts, thanks for sharing your experiences with it. I also agree with your statement here…it goes as part of the journey and things we learn.

Clearly marriage and divorce is not all that matters along the journey. People learn things without getting married, they get divorced and learn things…life has plenty of experiences for us all. I sense some just hyperfocus on divorce as this huge failure thing that should always be avoided and could have been avoided with the right formula before hand.

Maybe it does work out for couples, maybe it doesn’t. But it builds wisdom either way. In the big scheme of things…it is about who you become as a person, with or without marriage or divorce. And some things you just don’t figure out until you get behind the wheel and practice some.

I just wonder how much of the longevity of divorce has to do with preparation before marriage vs the ability to work at things as a couple during marriage? Which is more important?

Roy wrote:

3) postpone marriage until after DW graduated. We choose #3 and barely made it a temple wedding because it was sooo difficult to keep our hand off each other.

I also wonder how much stress we could relieve if we didn’t worry so much about that last part too. Unfortunately, it is kind of what we believe as part of the religion…so it ends up being something couples deal with on way or another.

[Anonymous]

The stats I saw paint a simple picture regarding LDS marriages – and I think the simplicity is accurate:

1) Temple marriages last at a much higher rate than just about any other marriages within Christianity. The actual divorce rate probably is somewhere below 10%. That doesn’t say anything objective about the happiness or quality of every marriage that lasts, but it is indicative of generally happy, well-functioning marriages.

2) Non-temple marriages of two Mormons end in divorce at the exact same rate as other marriages within the same religion / denomination. That rate is about 20-25%.

3) The divorce rate for active Mormons who marry non-Mormons is the highest figure of all other marriages involving reseasonably religious people – about 40-45%. I think too many Mormons marry non-Mormons with the idea that they can change their spouses’ religious views and, eventually, get sealed in the temple. I also think faith crises that lead to one spouse leaving the LDS Church play a part in the high rate.

I think the first rate might be a little higher now – but not much. I think the second rate will remain even with the rest of Christianity. I think the third rate might be dropping a bit, with the younger generations being more open to mixed-religion marriages – but the general pressures and assumptions are hard to change (in any religious group).

[Anonymous]

Old Timer wrote:

The stats I saw paint a simple picture regarding LDS marriages – and I think the simplicity is accurate:

1) Temple marriages last at a much higher rate than just about any other marriages within Christianity. The actual divorce rate probably is somewhere below 10%. That doesn’t say anything objective about the happiness or quality of every marriage that lasts, but it is indicative of generally happy, well-functioning marriages.

2) Non-temple marriages of two Mormons end in divorce at the exact same rate as other marriages within the same religion / denomination. That rate is about 20-25%

Re#1: show me the data. In fairness, neither of us are showing our data, so I probably should go back and dig, but… In the interest of laziness, I’ll resort to fallible memory.

There was a relatively famous (among Mormons and LDS sociologists and psychologists anyway) study out of BYU in the early 90s showing temple divorce rates being about 4-5%, but later researchers uncovered a big fallacy in the study because they’d only counted temple annulments and failed to consider the couples who married in the temple, but divorced and maybe later married others but never bothered or cared to get the first sealing successfully annulled. When those were counted, the number rose much higher, well above 10% but not quite as high as those with shared faiths marrying outside the temple. (Similarly, Catholics used to claim the lowest divorce rates. Well, it was illegal in many countries so what are you gonna do? Not divorce, just live with someone else).

And when we talk of “shared faith” we probably should say “shared philosophy or ideology” because atheists and agnostics marrying one another statistically beat averages too (and edge the evangelicals, at least in some studies I remember).

I also think Heber has a great point. When we talk about these stats, there’s the implication that divorce equals failure. However.. while a marriage failed to persist, this might have been the very best thing for all those involved. Maybe the better stats to consider should be from positive psychology. What traits do the happiest people in the world share? Are they married? Not necessarily, but they do have romantic love. Are they rich? No, but they love their work. Are they Mormon? Sorry no, not necessarily. We’ll, are they at least religious? Not necessarily, but they have found a life of service. They give back in some way or another.

But when marriage is taught as a saving ordinance necessary for the highest level of heaven, getting one and keeping one can become paramount. This is why many believe Mormons may be somewhat more likely to stay in unhappy marriages.

[Anonymous]

Cnsl1, I agree completely that some marriages (quite a few) that last shouldn’t last. I have said that repeatedly for many years. I also said that in my comment, just not explicitly – and I used important qualifiers (like “generally”) intentionally.

Of course, cultural pressures prevent divorce in many cases. That really isn’t up for debate – but that pressure goes both ways. It keeps bad marriages from breaking up, unfortunately, but, fortunately, it also keeps good marriages from breaking up during “normally bad” times – and it encourages people to work at keeping their marriages good and strong. Is the aggregate effect positive or negative? I don’t know – but the positive effects get overlooked too often in many of these discussions.

The difficulty with determining temple marriage divorce rates is, primarily, one of self-identification. Studies only can do two things: 1) Compare temple sealings with temple annulments; 2) Survey people who still identify as Mormon. Obviously, both of those options miss people who were sealed and later divorced.

Fwiw, what I studied tried to take those issues into account. The annulment-based study, if I remember correctly, set the rate at 6% – and what I read said the actual rate probably was a little lower than double that rate. (They used a pretty complicated statistical method to reach that conclusion, and it made sense to me given my statistical analysis experience.) Thus, my guess was a little lower than 10% at the time – and, as I said in the comment, a little higher now. If pressed for an actual estimate, I would guess it is around 12-13% now. That is essentially 1/8 (compared to 1/5-1/4 for non-temple marriages) – and that seems about right to me.

[Anonymous]

Cnsl1 wrote:

When we talk about these stats, there’s the implication that divorce equals failure. However.. while a marriage failed to persist, this might have been the very best thing for all those involved. Maybe the better stats to consider should be from positive psychology.

thanks for that acknowledgement…I rarely hear people look at it from the psychological well-being of the family…they often just focus on “marriages staying together” as the ultimate definition of success…which doesn’t jive with real life experience. For sure…ALL my kids are much better off since the divorce. Hands down, no question about it. But hey…if others want to call our family failure for marriage…that is just coming from their point of view. I guess I just am not sure why the focus is on marriage and longevity instead of gospel principles of progress (even amid change and circumstance) as we work in becoming who God wants us to become…regardless of multiple paths to get there (ie. some never marry in this life). Hyper-focused on stats for divorce can be a problem of valuing the wrong statistic, IMO.

Similarly, age of marriage may be a limited predictor of issues that follow.

Cnsl1 wrote:

But when marriage is taught as a saving ordinance necessary for the highest level of heaven, getting one and keeping one can become paramount. This is why many believe Mormons may be somewhat more likely to stay in unhappy marriages.

I also think that since the faith allows for baptism, sealing, and ordinance work and many many many other things in the life hereafter…people stay in unhappy marriages now because they have faith it will be “fixed” in the here after. The other spouse will have greater knowledge to be more worthy, or the mental or physical handicaps will be healed, or other types of scenarios that give them some hope that it will some day change…even while the days of their only mortal existence tick away from them in a temporal state of telestial pain and testing.

It can be a powerful thing to have hope for a better tomorrow…it can keep marriages together longer.

Again…just not sure that is saying it is better…for anyone…including the kids. So much circumstance varies this.

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