I often hear people quoting a 55% or 60% divorce rate and mistakenly implying that any couple getting married faces less than "even odds" of making it "until death do we part." That isn't true.
What people are not considering is that the "Divorce Rate" incorporates people who are involved in multiple marriages. The divorce rate for second marriages is generally accepted to be around 66.7% and the odds of third (or higher) marriages ending in divorce is about 75%. When ALL marriages are added together you get an average divorce rate of 55% (or ~60% in some studies.)
If you work the math backwards, a 55% overall divorce rate implies a 44% divorce rate among couples marrying for the first time and that the remaining 56% of couples marrying for the first time will be married for life!
Imagine what this number would be if the church withdrew the imprimatur of approval from "christian" divorce. Can you imagine the dramatic difference this change would have on countless children's lives?
Here is how the numbers work for 1,000 couples marrying for the first time:
Calculating a Divorce Rate
[...and keeping in mind that these calculations assume that everyone who divorces remarries, etc. These calculations are just to demonstrate the flaw in using the overall average as a predictor of first marriages.]
What people are not considering is that the "Divorce Rate" incorporates people who are involved in multiple marriages. The divorce rate for second marriages is generally accepted to be around 66.7% and the odds of third (or higher) marriages ending in divorce is about 75%. When ALL marriages are added together you get an average divorce rate of 55% (or ~60% in some studies.)
If you work the math backwards, a 55% overall divorce rate implies a 44% divorce rate among couples marrying for the first time and that the remaining 56% of couples marrying for the first time will be married for life!
Imagine what this number would be if the church withdrew the imprimatur of approval from "christian" divorce. Can you imagine the dramatic difference this change would have on countless children's lives?
Here is how the numbers work for 1,000 couples marrying for the first time:
Calculating a Divorce Rate
| Divorce | Total | Successful | Total | |
| Rate | Divorces | Marriages | Marriages | |
| 1st Marriages | 44.0% | 440 | 560 | 1,000 |
| 2nd Marriages | 66.7% | 293 | 147 | 440 |
| 3rd Marriages | 75.0% | 220 | 73 | 293 |
| TOTALS | 55% !!! | 953 | 780 | 1,733 |
[...and keeping in mind that these calculations assume that everyone who divorces remarries, etc. These calculations are just to demonstrate the flaw in using the overall average as a predictor of first marriages.]
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