Marriage is defined in Malachi 2:14 of the Holy Bible as a holy covenant before God when two come together before God to admit their love for one another and promise to be with one another. Marriage should exemplify the relationship the two have with God, giving public demonstration of the holy commitment that is being made. Marriage is also submitting you with another to governmental authorities, as it states in Romans 13:1-2, so long as the laws of the land don’t go against God’s laws.
If marriage is spelled out so clearly in the Bible, why does it seem like people are not meant for it? The divorce rate in the United States is 40 to 50 percent and only getting higher every year. The statistics make you wonder if humans in current society are meant for monogamous lifetime relationships. People are marrying less, and frequently cohabiting. Infidelity in marriage among people under 30 is rising and some are opting out of marriage all together.
The 2015, U.S. Wedding Forecast from Demographic Intelligence shows the marriage rate in 2015 has dropped to 6.74 per 1,000 people from 7.09 in 2008. The research also shows that there may be a relationship between education and the drop in marital rates. From 2008 to 2015, the marriage rate declined more than 13 percent for young women without a college degree. The number of women with college degrees who wed grew from 30 percent to 36 percent.
However, it’s not that simple to sum up all the answers in a few statistics. What the numbers don’t show is that the median age for marriage has increased. For men it is 29 and 22 for women. People are marrying later in life and are finding success in it. So what is the deal with the divorce rate?
Physical or emotional Infidelity is at 41 percent in the United States, but Health Research Funding found that 56 percent of men who have affairs claim to be happy in their marriages. Thirty-four percent of women who have marital affairs claim to be happy. Data shows that up to 60 percent of all spouses will take part in some form of infidelity at least once during their marriage. Infidelity only occurs for 17 percent of the current divorce rate. In fact, infidelity never gets discovered in most cases and out of the cases that do, 31 percent of marriages last after cheating has been discovered in the relationship.
Some divorcees have argued that longevity is the death of marriage, claiming that the “’til death do us part” stipulation only mattered when humans lived until the age of 30. Statistics show that incompatibility and lack of communication are the most common factors in divorce rates. Unsurprisingly, these factors are the same for most relationships that don’t end up in marriage. After breaking down the many complex statistics for marriage and divorce rates and finding the two most common factors, I am even more convinced that it is important to get to know your partner well before marrying them and improve communication skills. This process takes several years, so good luck.
