Okay - so I was wrong....

Ah - to refute my previous entry - here is one written by TBU - "That Bride"'s fiance.

Now I'm going to have to go & look up the real statistics. *sigh*

Fifty percent of marriages DO NOT END IN DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so fucking tired of hearing that "statistic" thrown around like it is so much gospel. It touches on numerous hot buttons of mine.

1. It is used as justification for avoiding / getting out of a marriage. "Well 1 out of every 2 marriages end in divorce. Why should I work to keep mine together?" They have even come up with a cute little term for people of my age group who have gotten married and divorced already - 'Starter Marriages'. What the fuck is that? It contributes to a mindset in our culture that divorce is inevitable. Which, in turn, may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This could get me off on an entire personal responsibility rant, but I will save that for another time.

2. The willingness of people to simply repeat something without thinking because it is much easier to parrot than think. Did you know that exactly 63.58% of all statistics are made up? Think for piss sake!

3. Using specious numerical logic. This is the one that probably pisses me off the most. How was this "statistic" born? In 1976 (or thereabouts), some reading genius happened to notice that the number of marriages in the United States (as tabulated by the CDC for that year) was 2,154,807 and the number of divorces was ~1,083,000. Dividing divorces by marriages, the person concluded that 50.25% of marriages ended in divorce. Hey moron - the CDC announced that 4,058,814 were born in the United States in 2000 and that 2,404,598 people died. Does that mean 59.25% of all the babies born in 2000 died? Mr Apple - I'd like you to meet Mr. Orange.

What is the right number? It's one of those statistics that is probably next to impossible to figure out. From 1940 to 1990 there were ~ 106M marriages in the US and ~38M divorces (~35%). But this doesn't factor out re-marriages and serial divorcees, so the real rate is probably even lower than that.

**Climbing down off soap-box**