Premarital sexual history is a better indicator of risk of divorce than age

Many people cite this study which claim that older couples are less likely to get divorced than younger couples as if it’s a blanket rule which doesn’t take into account the body counts of the people in the studies.

I suspect many do it to try and convince men that older women who were on the cock carousel are better options for marriage than a younger woman with low n count. Let us see if that is the case

Here is the study:

Study 1

The odds of divorce decline as you age from your teenage years through your late twenties and early thirties. Thereafter, the chances of divorce go up again as you move into your late thirties and early forties

In the following figure I controlled for respondents’ sex, race, family structure of origin, age at the time of the survey, education, religious tradition, religious attendance, and sexual history

Wolfinger, N. Replicating the Goldilocks Theory of Marriage and Divorce. Family Studies. Retrieved October 1 (2015): 2016.

Source: https://ifstudies.org/blog/replicating-the-goldilocks-theory-of-marriage-and-divorce/

Since sexual history was controlled for in the study above, this means that when n count is held constant across couples, couples aged 30-34 have the lowest risk of divorce.

This means that:

• A couple aged 30 with a body count of 2 is less likely to get divorced than a couple aged 20 with a body count of 2

• A couple aged 30 with a body count of 24 is less likely to get divorced than a couple aged 20 with a body count of 24

This study does NOT mean that a 30 year old post CC rider with a body count of 20+ is less likely to divorce than a 20 year old woman with a body count of 1.

This becomes even clearer once we examine the second study.

The study below tells us that women with more premarital sexual partners are more likely to divorce:

Study 2 (From the same author)

Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce,

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

Wolfinger, Nicholas H. Counterintuitive Trends in the Link Between Premarital Sex and Marital Stability. Institute for Family Studies, June 6 (2016).

Source: https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability

As a result, since Study 1 tells us that older couples are less likely to get divorced than younger couples (when sexual history is held constant), and Study 2 tells us that women with more premarital partners are more likely to divorce, then premarital sexual history is a better indicator of risk of divorce than age.

Taking both studies into account, it stands to reason that the best way to avoid a divorce is to marry a woman aged 30-34 with n count of 0-1.