{"id":221,"date":"2008-05-09T14:02:17","date_gmt":"2008-05-09T18:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/blog\/?p=221"},"modified":"2008-05-09T16:32:24","modified_gmt":"2008-05-09T20:32:24","slug":"youre-too-dumb-to-get-married-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/?p=221","title":{"rendered":"You’re Too Dumb to Get Married Anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, I need to rant because this is driving me nuts. There are always arguments it seems, on the sugar network about living together before marriage<\/a>. Now, I think people should do whatever they want. I don’t judge people who do, I don’t judge people who don’t. There’s just one thing that really bugs me…<\/p>\n

About five girls said: I won’t live with my SO before we get married because I heard that people who live together have a higher chance of getting divorced and I don’t know why that is, but I want my marriage to be successful.<\/p>\n

OK, just think about it for a second! All I ask is that you think! First of all, not doing something just because of a statistic: STUPID! The first thing they teach you about statistics: CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!!!!!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe, the type of people who live together before they’re married are a little more liberal about relationships? Maybe they’re more likely to get divorced because they’re the kind of people that don’t have a problem with divorce? Hmmmm?<\/p>\n

Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Stability<\/a> by Ruth Weston, Lixia Qu and David de Vaus, is a good read that explores the statistic and the reasons behind it. From the article:<\/p>\n

In summary, these results suggest that, as indirect marriages have become more commonplace, the difference in the stability of direct and indirect marriages has diminished. Second, as would be expected, the difference is smaller if the duration of the (living-together) union rather than the duration of marriage is taken into account.
\nThird, the difference appears to be strongly influenced by self-selection factors: when some of the observed characteristics that appear to influence both marriage pathway and marital stability were controlled, the difference in the probabilities of separation eight years after marriage or union formation was substantially reduced.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suggest you read the whole article, but if you really like statistics, here are some more from about.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nIn France and Germany cohabiting couples have a slightly lower risk of divorce.
\nIf cohabitation is limited to a person’s future spouse, there is no elevated risk of divorce. (I don’t understand how that’s different that the statistic in question<\/em>)
\nIn the U.S., cohabiting couples taking premarital education courses or counseling are not at a higher risk for divorce.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And you know, couples in arranged marriages are less likely to get divorced. So if you really want to be on the safe side, you should do that.<\/p>\n

People really put way too much faith into numbers and studies they haven’t even bothered to research. We have this amazing thing now called the internet! Use it!<\/p>\n

So, what do I think about living together before marriage? I think, if you really plan on marrying the person, it can be a good idea. I don’t know if you can really know someone or how they’ll react in certain situations until you live with them. The main reason I wanted to live with Bryan: I love him and I like seeing him every day. <\/p>\n

I think the big danger comes in when people think of marriage as a way to solve a problem or problems in their relationship or life. And there are other valid reasons for not wanting to live together before marriage. If you’re religious, if you just don’t feel comfortable with it, if you don’t think it’s right for you, you’ve had bad experiences in the past… As long as the reason isn’t a damn statistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, I need to rant because this is driving me nuts. There are always arguments it seems, on the sugar network about living together before marriage. Now, I think people should do whatever they want. I don’t judge people who do, I don’t judge people who don’t. There’s just one thing that really bugs me… […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8bQP0-3z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silvercpu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}