Divorce rate after 5 years hops from 7% to 18% to 30% for people who have 0, 1, and 2 premarital partners respectively. After that, it stabilizes in the 30s for 3+ partners.

northernlights190 · 2023-02-13T07:48:19+00:00

OP, one thing to note is that in this data, zero pre-marital partners includes the person the woman marries; in other words, she was a virgin when she married.

It’s also notable that the divorce rate in that cohort was higher in the 1980s and 1990s than today, which likely reflects the fact that women who do not have sex at all before marriage is now even more exclusively the domain of highly religious people. This also has a massive impact on divorce rates but does not necessarily equal a happy marriage or better “pair-bonding.” (If divorce means you will effectively be shunned from your whole community and family, and may have few skills to support yourself and your kids due to a highly conservative upbringing, and also you believe you’ll spend eternity in hell for divorcing your partner, you’ll tolerate basically anything.)

Additionally, this also means the jump in divorce rates you stress as occurring with the “first pre-marital partner” includes having sex before marriage only with the person she marries, so that doesn’t exactly support your “damages the pair-bonding ability” theory very well, unless you can somehow explain why having sex with the same man before marriage damages a woman’s ability to bond to him. (Though by your logic, this means you should refuse to sleep with a woman before marriage to give yourself better odds, even if you would be her first.)

Also note that 3-9 pre-marital partners have lower rates than just two. In other words, when you take out the women who have the strongest religious factors leading to them not divorcing, it appears that having slightly more relationship and sexual experience prior to choosing a partner for marriage has a positive effect on lowering divorce rates — or, by your logic where this represents pair bonding, women with 3-9 lifetime partners “pair bond” better than those with just two. (I’d say it just represents that women with some experience, and who likely marry a bit older than the 2 group, ultimately choose more compatible partners.)

It’s only until you get into the higher numbers, which like the lowest ones are correlated with many other negative social and life factors influencing that behaviour, that there’s a detrimental effect.

Finally, the fact that even people with 10+ partners were significantly less likely to divorce within five years in the 1980s than they are now — and in fact were less likely than some other cohorts at that time to divorce — certainly suggests there’s something else going on there than just some nebulous concept of “pair bonding ability.”

ETA:

I’m going to make one last point: while women do formally initiate the majority of divorces, they do not initiate all of them, and I’m still not too convinced that legal initiation solely represents “fault” for the decision to end a marriage. It is certainly my observation that by the time a divorce is filed, the relationship has long since irrevocably broken down and neither partner is happy. That’s very rarely just one person’s fault (though it can be in situations such as infidelity).

When you argue that damaged “pair bonding” on the woman’s behalf is the reason for this variation in 5-year divorce rates, it assumes — absent much strong evidence, in my opinion — that the reason for the divorce is entirely due to lack of love on the woman’s side.

You could just as easily theorize that, for instance, women who either don’t have sex before marriage or only sleep with their future husband before marriage come from social environments where men are also more committed to marriage and make better marriage partners: they may be less likely to cheat, for instance. And you could argue that women who have had more than 10 partners may be more likely to be in social environments where men as well as women have multifaceted issues that make marriages overall less stable and sustainable.

Thinking of social environments I know where extreme promiscuity is common, for instance, both the women and the men are quite likely to be highly unhealthy, and the marriages they enter are frequently unstable and toxic. But it’s due to a vast multitude of factors that damage relationship stability and also cause promiscuity — addiction, childhood trauma, mental health issues, etc.

Mistress-Eve- · 2023-02-13T09:31:57+00:00

Biologically speaking - pair bonding only means a bond sustained as long as a mating cycle. Doesn’t mean for life. Most animals go through as many pair bonds as they do mating cycles. Primates included.

But what?? You mean.. humans don’t just behave like animals ? …. No shit. We are not slaves of biology. Well.. maybe you are. But that’s because you choose to be. Same as horoscopes - stop this self fulfilling prophecy shit y’all look like clowns.

According to this graph people with 12 previous partners should have 1 more before settling down to decrease their chances of divorce by 20%. Sound advice. Thanks!

DoinIt989 · 2023-02-13T08:43:26+00:00

I'm not arguing with the findings about marrying as a virgin, but I think there's more to it than "pair bonding".

Also, stated in the article, refering to the divorce rate after 5 years. The graph you shown is pre five years. There's a spike in divorce likelihood at 2 premarital partners which lowers and the jumps up again at ten.

For women marrying since the start of the new millennium:

Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce, but this only became true in recent years;

Women with 3-9 partners were less likely to divorce than women with 2 partners; and,

Women with 0-1 partners were the least likely to divorce.

Virgins are probably less likey to have cohabitated prior to marriage.

In fact, on average, researchers found that couples who cohabited before marriage had a 33 percent higher chance of divorcing than couples who moved in together after the wedding ceremony.

https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2014/03/10/cohabitation-divorce-brief-report/

I'm curious about them deciding that religion isn't factor since virgins are more likely to attend church services with their partner accounting to the study you posted.

Most recently, research conducted at Harvard's School of Public Health reveals that regularly attending church services together reduces a couple's risk of divorce by a remarkable 47 percent. Many studies, they report, have similar results ranging from 30 to 50 percent reduction in divorce risk.

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/03/20935/#:~:text=Most%20recently%2C%20research%20conducted%20at,percent%20reduction%20in%20divorce%20risk.

MarBitt · 2023-02-13T10:21:16+00:00

Where are the data on the link between the number of premarital partners and marital stability in men?

The only thing I found: Both men and women are most likely to be very happy in their marriages if they have only 1 sexual partner in their lifetime.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-sexual-history-affect-marital-happiness

New_Relative_8709 · 2023-02-13T10:26:50+00:00

Have you ever considered that girls with 1 or 2 lifetime partners are just waaay more conservatives and would stay in a shitty relationship getting cheated on for “family” reasons while a more liberal girl wouldn’t?

TermAggravating8043 · 2023-02-13T08:09:16+00:00

Where’s the data for the men’s divorce after pre-martial sex?

Also, we know the most common reason for a divorce is from cheating, which statistically men still do more of. So I don’t know why we’re continuity try n shame women for not getting married at 19 to keep her n-count low when it’s dudes that need to stop having their cake and eating it too.

Also, divorce is more likely before the first child reaches the age of 7 (would love someone to mention this) and since 70% of divorced are started by women this suggests men aren’t pulling their weight in the family dynamic

ManWazo · 2023-02-13T11:34:37+00:00

People who don't have sex before mariage are generally less interested into sex. So if you value a lasting mariage, I guess you don't care about having a lasting sexless mariage, is that right?

WilliamWyattD · 2023-02-13T12:46:49+00:00

Filtering for sexual restraint in a partner, male or female, makes sense to me. However, you always have to consider context before you start blindly making arbitrary filters.

In certain demographics, filtering for a virgin or very low N Count woman is going to yield a very small pool. Moreover, this pool will end up disproportionately full of extremely unattractive women, or women with virtually no libido, or who have been traumatized by sex, and other issues like that.

So you are going to have to just evaluate each woman individually, based on context. If it is a UMC white woman who grew up in the liberal northeast, maybe a great candidate is a girl who slept with two guys in high school, another two or three in college, and learned from that. Perhaps a couple of those were actual attempts at serious relationships that did not work out. Now, at 22, she realizes she wants to only be intimate with very committed partners.

To me, that is a decent woman who may well have a healthy libido, but is also accumulating wisdom without too much damage.

GooseneckRoad · 2023-02-13T07:37:03+00:00

I'd never marry a non-virgin man for this reason.

obviousredflag · 2023-02-13T12:20:40+00:00

This is perhaps the strongest argument I've seen for seeking out partners with a 0 body count.

Not only does pair-bonding ability get damaged by having past partners, it happens much earlier than people think. You don't need to have had 20+ past partners to have your ability to pair bond diminish. It literally happens after your first premarital partner. An 11% jump, and then a 12% jump. That's crazy.

You are looking for information that confirms your belief. In this process you ignore all data that has other explanations and you also ignore any obvious flaws in the studies you accept as the truth.

There is ZERO evidence that having lots of previous partners damages pair-bonding ability. I challenge you to find a study that shows this.

Your study found a correlation and not a causation. You know what also correlates with no sexual partners before marriage? Strong religious values. Do you know what correlates with strong religious values? Sticking to marriages that other people would divorce.

And for your issue with increasing "divorce rate" for higher numbers of sexual partners:

Religious people marry young. Normal people marry at 30-31 on average. I am 38 and not married yet, but in a committed relationship. Do you know what happens when you marry with 34 compared to 21? You have lot more sexual partners by the time you are 34.

You also seem to completely ignore the info from the thread you quoted:

When the risk of divorce is assessed by the number of premarital sexual partners, a counter-intuitive picture emerges. As of 2000s, women with 3-9 premarital partners had higher divorce rates than than women with 0-1 partners, but LOWER than those with 2 partners. Also, women with 4-5 partners were at a lower risk of divorce than women with 3 partners. Women with 10+ premarital partners, however, had the highest risk of divorce (almost 35%), but not much higher than women with 2 premarital partners (30%). **The median number of lifetime partners for women aged 15-44 is 3.2.

Women married and never divorced had a median of 3 partners.

The percentage in the graph is REPORTED A DIVORCE IN THE PAST and sexual partners are lifetime and not premarital. So guess the fuck what, staying in marriages makes people have usually zero further sexual partners, while being divorced puts you back into the pool of people who fuck with different partners. Of course people with a divorce in their past do have more sexual partners on average.

It's stupid to obsess over sexual partners. If you would approach the topic of risk of divorce/unfaithfulness as something that is really important to you, then you would look at all the other risk factors for divorce/unfaithfulness and treat them with the same weight: having a rich social life, being extroverted, going on business trips, being drunk, having a controlling husband, having a husband who is bad at sex, ...

Look at time spent in a cohabitating relationship before marriage as a risk factor for divorce. Look at data that doesn't include US biblethumpers and general idiotic marriage behavior.

shestammie · 2023-02-13T07:38:42+00:00

Pair bonding has zero functional relevancy on this topic. None. People with prior partners divorce because they understand how much better they can have it and usually don’t face external pressures to maintain a marriage even if it’s dead in the water.

People without pre-marital partners are almost exclusively of a sex-negative religious background where enduring a marriage, however bad it may be, is virtuous behavior. They don’t divorce because they feel they socially can’t. They trap themselves.

Side note, men, if you want virgins, be a virgin yourself or get over it. Hypocrisy is ugly.

revente · 2023-02-13T12:10:54+00:00

You people need to stop treating ‚marriage lasting till death’ as the most important thing in life.

It’s the personal happiness that counts. And if you’re unhapp you should end your relationship rn.

You won’t be awarded some ‚cosmic moral points’ for staying with your toxic spouse.

moosemc · 2023-02-13T14:20:45+00:00

And then we all graduate, get jobs, pay bills, and have a lot less time on our hands to worry about body counts.

Atomic_Thr0away · 2023-02-14T02:52:05+00:00

So basically it's all "dose dependent" until we come close to running out of options. Then all of a sudden we have a bunch of "reformed whores" running back to the "beta boys" they originally turned down but now want to get security from.

Surprise, surprise. Hypergamy is real.

When women are young they're playing a giant game of "deal or no deal"... until they run low on briefcases and she "settles" for beta bob where she becomes bored, restless and resentful... gee, where can I sign up?

Quiet-Lie-219 · 2023-02-13T07:28:25+00:00

While I agree with the sentiment that people should probably abstain from sex outside the context of a committed loving relationship, I wouldn’t put much stock in the idea that divorce rates inversely correlate to healthy relationships.

beansontoast57 · 2023-02-13T08:47:26+00:00

Am I being dense but where have you shown that divorce is a bad thing?

I think it's a good thing that people feel empowered enough to say that something isn't working out for them and to move on than to stay with someone they don't love because they don't know any other way

SocietalEngineering · 2023-02-13T13:05:56+00:00

This just means that people who are inexperienced are more afraid to leave their marriage because they aren’t sure they can get another partner. It has nothing to do with the strength of their pair bonding, it’s just that people with fewer partners have a scarcity mentality and less of an ability to put up boundaries.

This data needs to be compared to stats that would indicate “marriage satisfaction”. I’m willing to bet that those with more partners have a much higher marriage satisfaction with their current partner than they had with past partners.

relish5k · 2023-02-13T13:12:38+00:00

The 0-2 cohort is likely majority people who are religious and have strong community disincentives towards divorce. So in that cohort, it’s the religiosity rather than the n-count explaining the low divorce rate.

For the higher group, it makes sense. People with very liberal attitudes toward sex probably also have liberal attitudes toward marriage and don’t find divorce as stigmatizing.

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throwaway164_3 · 2023-02-13T15:14:26+00:00

Maybe people who have more partner are hotter and have more options?

The uggos don’t divorce cause they know they can’t do better?

Pre marital sex is awesome and marriage is overrated anyway.

Reasonable_Volume_96 · 2023-02-13T15:25:24+00:00

Eh, this study is just religious propaganda IMO.

Women who are highly religious are far more likely to be virgins on their wedding day, and they are discouraged from ever masturbating or finding out what brings them pleasure.

Adding to that - many won't divorce because it is "against God"

This to me, is not a sign of a successful marriage - it's just a sign that those women are more likely to accept abuse/unhappiness longer than, or even for the rest of their lives in comparison to more worldly knowledgeable women with more life experience.

It's also weirdly skewed for women's body count and says very little about men being virgins when they get married being prominent. Though that is also more likely in the religious sector.

Divorce is not a bad word and IMO seeing your parents unhappily married in unhealthy relationships they refuse to end simply emulates the idea that their children should settle for a life of unhappiness rather than one that brings them joy.

No fault divorce was the best thing to ever happen to women in this country, following being able to vote, open our own damn bank accounts and buying property without needing a man to give us permission.

Essentially this article might as well say "Sheltered women with strict religious values stay in the relationship no matter the quality and often to her detriment."

Reasonable_Volume_96 · 2023-02-13T15:29:25+00:00

I'd love to see a study cited where there's data saying that men would be better off being a virgin and having 0 body count before meeting their spouse but I'm sure that doesn't exist because it would damage the argument men like to make as if women aren't also human and function exactly the same in most aspects outside of the way out reproductive system is set up.

Odd-Luck7658 · 2023-02-13T18:26:01+00:00

Ugly people who don’t have choices get married as virgins and stay married.

These data you’ve posted mean nothing.

Green-Quantity1032 · 2023-02-13T19:36:06+00:00

I actually think it's a strong argument that body counts don't matter..

Where the hell will I find a 0 body count woman?

Why the fuck would a grown woman have 0 body count?

Either religions or really hung-up about sex.

Now, 1-2 - How am I even supposed to believe a somewhat attractive woman at age 22+ had 1-2 partners.

Only reason is she has a mythological ex who meant "everything for her" and she'll cheat on you with him, or again - she's too hung-up about sex.

3+ is where it's at, so if it doesn't matter 3 or 20, you may as well just don't ask and enjoy the ride.

ba byeee

Diddy_1978 · 2023-02-13T22:44:06+00:00

This doesn’t say what you think it says. It basically says that religious couples don’t get divorced, as they are almost the entirety of couples with no premarital sex. And by the way that doesn’t mean they are happily married.

Loose-Bet-3787 · 2023-02-14T00:11:37+00:00

INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY STUDIES IS NOT A VALID SOURCE OF INFORMATION

ratsareniceanimals · 2023-02-13T15:02:46+00:00

People looking for partners with a 0 body count need to start being honest - you're terrified of being judged by someone with any experience, and you're hoping that they just won't "know better" and will stay with you due to lack of options.

If a person has never heard a singer before, they can't tell if you're Mariah Carey or talentless Mary singing in the shower.

Ylduts · 2023-02-13T10:41:23+00:00

To put it bluntly, is that it is no accomplishment for a woman to have slept with a lot of guys. For most women, having sex is an incredibly easy thing to attain. Sleeping with many men for a woman does not point to any "positive" traits she may have, whereas for men, to have sex, it usually requires having some type of "positive" traits: being good-looking, funny, charming, good conversationalist, has money etc. The literature is pretty clear with the statistics. Higher body count in women is correlated with higher prevalence of mental health issues, personality disorders, drug use and cheating. Of course these are just correlations, so by no means does it mean that a woman with a high body count fits any of those demographics, but there is a relationship.

Another reason has to do with the fact that at the end of the day we are still biological creatures. Sex ultimately is for reproduction and there is no form of contraception that is 100% effective. Every one of those times that she had sex, it was possible for her to get pregnant. And all those guys she's hooked up with could have been a father to her child. Societally, it probably wouldn't be so great for a woman to have a bunch of kids with a bunch of different guys who might not be mature or healthy enough to be a father and who might not even know if the child is theirs.

Sex is not and never will be equal between men and women. Why would any competent man want a woman that makes terrible life decisions?

Andre27 · 2023-02-13T07:22:09+00:00

This is the idea for me now. Im not really holding out hope for finding a virgin though, much less one that I match with. And if I end up being in my late 20s no closer to finding that I will probably just give up on the idea of family and start fucking around. Maybe have a child with some random woman who wants children without committing to her beyond raising children together.

Ok_Razzmatazz_1751 · 2023-02-13T10:16:29+00:00

People are happy with less partners because they know no better . The naive , inexperienced part really helps keep some people in place like a lap dog . Scared to live outside the box ......

Subject-Ad-9613 · 2023-02-13T12:47:40+00:00

it does not stabilize at all. there is no data that tracks it across decades, and since more than 30 percent of marriages fail, the reality is much worse. basically if the woman has any more than 3 partners it's guaranteed to not work out.

No-Rough-7390 · 2023-02-13T14:38:07+00:00

Marriage under law just needs to die off. Do it in front of friends, family, community.

Lolabird2112 · 2023-02-13T12:12:01+00:00

So, OP - you’re a virgin & staying that way?

lilpepperoniz · 2023-02-13T13:41:59+00:00

Depends...if ur wife's a bitch then it doesn't matter if you were the only man she ever loved or had sex with

AceArguments · 2023-02-13T14:25:34+00:00

Having low bodycounts reduces divorce but it's not the number that creates the divorce rates. If you start viewing people above a certain body count as a lost cause and not marriage material, then you've just put the number before the connection. It's the connection and relationship to the other person that determines if the marriage will succeed.

In studies the scientist uses the best variables available to capture data. That doesn't mean the variables chosen are actually the best metric to get insight into a topic/issue. Sometimes it's a matter of all we have. Capturing suicide rates through numbers of deaths doesn't tell us why people commit suicide or what environmental circumstances lead them there.

I understand a lot of people who are pilled don't want to actually evaluate real life relationships and rather use tips/tricks/hacks to be the main decider rather than yourself. But don't turn around and blame women if your choices still lead you to divorce and failed relationships because you chose a low body count woman as the deciding factor. Less likely doesn't mean it's not going to happen.

Diamond-Breath · 2023-02-13T14:53:25+00:00

I think it comes down to cohabitation before marriage, nowadays more people cohabitate before marriage and statistics show that they're more likely to divorce IF they even get married in the first place.

Safinated · 2023-02-13T15:34:00+00:00

Please explain how 3 partners equals virginity

Soloandthewookiee · 2023-02-13T18:53:05+00:00

Men are 50% more likely to commit infidelity (20% vs 13% for women).

So do we date based on statistics or not?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adambarsouk/2018/10/05/evolution-may-explain-why-men-are-more-likely-to-cheat/?sh=53ce4662b1ae

Sabrepill · 2023-02-13T19:00:59+00:00

These studies are as silly as the male fertility decline studies which feminists try to use to paint men in a similar fertility light as women.

Men have 3x the risk of miscarriage and or having autistic kids when they are over 50. Yet the risk is under 1% and 3x that risk is still under 1%. Yet somehow the feminists turn that into some kind of massive male fertility decline when the chance of a healthy baby is 98-99% for even 80 year old senile old farts.

Similarly these studies which show women having multiple partners not being able to pair bond is the mens rights and red pill extremist version of those anti male fertility studies. It takes a small truth and then extrapolates it into a fake narrative.

I don’t know if human are lifelong monogamist animals, behavioral evidence indicates we are serial monogamous and opportunistically polygamous. Lifelong Monogamy is something rare and mostly enforced through religion and society

I don’t think sleeping around having casual non reproductive sex is great for anyone when it’s done in excess. But having your sexual needs met may not be a bad thing for either sex

RocinanteCoffee · 2023-02-13T19:34:12+00:00

Reminder that IFStudies has a conservative religious agenda and has been caught falsifying and misrepresenting data to support it.

CommodoreFalcon · 2023-02-13T20:35:01+00:00

Pretty much the only people who remain virgins until marriage in Western countries are members of hardcore religious communities (be it Christian, Muslim or whatever).

In these fundamentalist religious communities that put a high emphasis on virginity, divorce is also heavily frowned upon and divorcees are often shunned or at the very least have a big stigma attached to them. I'd imagine this would play a big part in this phenomenon.

That__EST · 2023-02-14T15:48:52+00:00

It's because people with just a few sex partners likely put sex on a pedestal. Once you've passed a certain threshold you see that sex is just sex. I'd personally rather be with someone who was promiscuous and I felt like I had a good connection with them than someone who believes sex is this amazing and sacred bonding experience and has previous partners who I'm wondering why they even left them if that's how they feel about sex.

0112358f · 2023-03-11T05:57:58+00:00

Please control for sex drive. Thanks.

montylittt · 2023-02-13T21:45:19+00:00

These numbers are actually great evidence that body count doesn't matter. Body count of 0 or 1 means you're super devout religious or really have significant hang ups around sex. That's a different population than normal. For normal, ie more than 3 partners, divorce rate stabilizes.

Body count doesn't matter people, go find something else to fixate on as the fix for all your dating problems 🤣

Divorce rate after 5 years hops from 7% to 18% to 30% for people who have 0, 1, and 2 premarital partners respectively. After that, it stabilizes in the 30s for 3+ partners.

Comments

notallmen I'm a virgin man who wants to be held to the highest standards of morality. The men in my life generally hold the same views, including my father who saved himself for marriage.