Marriage

This is mostly in response to a post on Erin's blog... Partly as an interesting "quest for knowledge" as I delved more into the subject...

According to the Centers for Disease Control (yes, they keep the "official" marriage stats!) the divorce rate is approximately 40-50%. Oddly enough, the trends I saw have indicated slightly higher (probably statistically irrelevant) divorce rates under Bush...

While the CDC doesn't have stats concerning religion and marriage, other studies have shown that there is little--if any--difference in divorce rates among those who consider themselves "religious" and those who "don't." Click here for more info.

Quite the contrary, some studies show that the more "conservative" religions may actually have higher divorce rates than more "liberal" religions and those who consider themselves "agnostic" and/or "atheist." Any significantly lower divorce rates among religions are generally attributed to the religion not allowing divorce, individuals not willing to divorce no matter what, or other sociological factors. Oddly enough, poor people may have lower divorce rates than average, likely due to their inability to afford lawyers. Also interesting is the suggestion by some studies that liberals and agnostics/atheists may have lower divorce rates than average!

Also interesting to note is that the divorce rate for homosexual couples is significantly lower than heterosexual couples--in states that allow same-sex marriages, of course. Studies have also shown that separation rates are rather lower for long-term same-sex couples...