Good news about marriage from some bad statistics

I was listening to a message the other day by one of the pastors out at Grace Church in Sun Valley, CA, and he had a brief discussion on those statistics that say that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. He mentioned that this is probably not accurate and that Barna may be closer when he says 33% or 34% end in divorce. However, even Barna's numbers aren't completely accurate.

The statistics are based on the comparison of the number of marriage ceremonies each year compared to the number of divorces filed at the courthouse. Let's say in your town there are 100 marriage licenses obtained in a given year and 50 divorce petitions filed. Sounds like a 50% divorce rate, right? Wrong. What this stat doesn't take into account is the number of existing marriages at the beginning of the year. Let's say there are 1000 marriages already in existence in your town on Jan. 1, there are 100 new marriages by the end of the year and 50 divorces by the end of the year. What is the divorce rate in your town? I'm no mathemetician but that sounds more like 5% than 50%.

This pastor quoted someone else who said that it is more likely that only about 10%-11% of marriages actually end in divorce. True, that number is accelerating these days and it is something to be concerned about. But the story isn't as bad as it seems.

The take-away value on this is to remember that marriages are better off than we are often led to believe. I can remember being engaged and while in the flush and blush of young love, alot of the older married couples we knew would say "that's sweet, but it'll wear off." We heard a lot of "wait till the honeymoon's over," and "I'll give it a year or so before things aren't so rosy."

If I weren't such a Chestertonian, good-humored blogger I would raise the suggestion that there's a conspiracy afoot to undermine marriage and convince everybody that those of us who are happily, traditionally, and monogamously married, really aren't so happily married. If I weren't so inclined to give a good ol' Chestertonian belly laugh (my belly used to be nearly as big as Chesterton's but it has shrunk over the last year) at such things, I would almost believe that there are forces out there in our society who want to scare young people out of getting married by offering all of these dreadful predictions.

However, truth eventually wins out, and the truth is marriage ain't so bad, statistically or experientially. Even that old relic from the stone age known as traditional, monogamous marriage is actually quite a nice thing, if I do say so myself.