Women who were virgins before they got married are the least likely to divorce after five years, but these brides are scarce, according to the results of a new study released Monday by the Institute for Family Studies.
The study released was conducted by Nicholas H. Wolfinger, a University of Utah professor of family and consumer studies who recently co-authored Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Children, and Marriage among African Americans and Latinos, with W. Bradford Wilcox.
Wolfinger uses data from the three most recent waves of the National Survey of Family Growth collected in 2002, 2006-2010, and 2011-2013. The findings, he says, highlights the complex link between premarital sex and marital stability.
The study also found that women married since the year 2000 who had just two sexual partners prior to marriage are surprisingly just as likely to end up divorced at the same rate after five years as a growing cohort of women who had 10 or more sexual partners before marriage.
“Earlier research found that having multiple sex partners prior to marriage could lead to less happy marriages, and often increased the odds of divorce. But sexual attitudes and behaviors continue to change in America, and some of the strongest predictors of divorce in years gone by no longer matter as much as they once did,” notes Wolfinger in the brief on his findings.
“As premarital sex became more acceptable, it’s reasonable to anticipate that its negative effects on marital stability waned,” Wolfinger added.
Most of the women with minimal sexual experience or practiced abstinence before marriage cited religion as a factor in their life.
Wolfinger further noted that aside from religion, race and family of origin accounted for the largest portion of the sexual partners/divorce relationship.
People who grew up without both parents had more partners and divorced more.
“It won’t be surprising to most readers that people with more premarital sex partners have higher divorce rates, broadly speaking. That said, this research brief paints a fairly complicated picture of the association between sex and marital stability that ultimately raises more questions than it answers,” said Wolfinger.
aaron@ugchristiannews.com
