The statistics about marriage failures are misleading. They are biased by the fact that people who divorce tend to have multiple marriages. People who are bad at being married make it look bad for everyone.

If you look at the statistics for first marriages the picture is less depressing. Also, the rates have been improving and people getting married today have much better odds.

The statistics are useless. They tell you nothing about the percentage of unhappy marriages. Only the ones where it was convenient enough to be able to separate. There is also huge cultural stigma against divorce in most places. This is why cities tend to have higher divorce rates - it's more socially acceptable.

> The statistics about marriage failures are misleading. They are biased by the fact that people who divorce tend to have multiple marriages.

They are also biased because many unhappy couples won't divorce for various reasons.

This should be the top comment. Not even a truism, cliché or a platitude, the entire article is actually based on a misrepresentation of the facts.

Why has this become so common? I remember the first time I read something similar thinking “Interesting, but that’s weird, it doesn’t match up with my life experience. I must live in a perfect little butterfly bubble of some kind.” Then I read an article which explained the statistics in more detail. Ahh.

So, why did this author write this article? Do they not know the statistics? Maybe they read some of the many earlier articles which make the same bad assumption and decided to build on that bad assumption - but without looking at the actual data?

Statistics don't lie but liars use statistics. Is that what happened here? Maybe. Maybe the author was just lazy. Who knows. But it does seem like a huge number of stories begin with a title and brief introduction, then 3 or 4 conservative or liberal platitudes sprinkled in, each of which are so general they misrepresent reality and hide useful and actionable facts.

Maybe its more a house of cards.

Age of marriage also makes a huge difference. Under 25 has much higher rates than over.

And the parent's comment is also true: if you get divorced then chances are you'll get divorced again, e.g. Liz Taylor's eight marriages.

>If you look at the statistics for first marriages the picture is less depressing

Sort of depending on where you are in the world. Statistics for First Marriages is still quite depressing in many developed places, especially in cities.

I think the failure rates of marriages are more related to the strong economic incentives to marry when it is not "the right time." You forgo a lot of disposable income by staying single and this can be the main drive to get married.

And then on the other hand, rearing a child seems to have become more expensive as a percentage of worker output than it used to be as that output is extracted by things like rent.

First marriages end 50% of the time [1], which doesn't seem that great. It's 67% for 2nd and 73% of 3rd. Given the large number that never remarry, the 2nd and 3rd order effects don't really add much to the overall rate.

>the rates have been improving

Maybe because record few people get married, and those that do, do so at record high ages [2].

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-intelligent-divo...

[2] https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of-arts-and-sc...

> If you had a computer that only booted, or a car that only started, 40% of the time - you wouldn't say, well.. the system is ok - sometimes it works out!

This is an unfair comparison because the standard for a marriage succeeding is a lot higher than for computers or cars. If I bought a car or a computer and it and had only a 60% chance of failing to last until I'm 80 years old I'd consider that fantastic.

But a marriage that fails after ten years is counted as part of the 40% failure rate.

Cars don't come with a guarantee that it will last until you're 80 though. You go over a certain mileage, you're counting down the life of your car.

On the other hand, marriage is touted as this perfect "till death do us apart" deal.

Should weddings be sold like cars? With "your mileage may vary" and "you will have many marriages throughout your life?" Maybe then I'd agree with your logic.

> Should weddings be sold like cars? With "your mileage may vary" and "you will have many marriages throughout your life?" Maybe then I'd agree with your logic.

Sure. Mortgages come in 15 and 30 year sizes, and child custody is util they're 18.

Call it a 20 year sizing, after that you figure out whatchu need to split up and then think about the next steps.

Why not just calculate the average duration of a marriage instead? Of course this is biased against people who marry late in life but at least the meaning of the number is easy to understand. A 40% failure rate can mean practically anything.

It's worse than that.

If the goal of marriage is simply to stay together (rather than, say, to stay together and for it to actually be beneficial for those involved) then yes 60% of marriages are failures and 40% success.

But if the goal is more ambitious, then at least 60% of marriages are failures. Maybe the remaining 40% stay together for religious reasons, a misplaced sense of pride, for the benefit of children rather than spouses, etc.

I'm not so cynical to say 100% of marriages "fail" in this sense, but I'd wage it's a lot higher than 60%. And you might be a lot more worried about those marriages that fall into the "stayed together but bad" category, as they'll include abusive and exploitative relationships.

Agree.

I feel a little bad about this post. It's not inaccurate but it reads too negative, or maybe bitter (I'm not).

Everyone says - well, you'll be unhappy either way wrt marriage. But it seems to me those who don't get married are much happier - some in relationships, some not. But I would still personally like to get married, I think... so I guess I want these stats to be untrue, or for there to be an escape - "people keep marrying unwisely" etc.

> 40% of the time

It's more subtle than that. If you dig into the data, you'll see it's closer to "100 marriages this year, 50 divorces -- omg half of marriages end in divorce!"

This is only true if there were zero existing, previous marriages before this year.

The more common trend now is that people just aren't getting married, likely in small part because of this mathematical+reporting malpractice. When you convince people something usually fails, they don't bother trying.

There is a math interpretation error, but it isn't that.

The actual error is that some people keep coming back. Most people don't get a divorce, but some people skew the numbers by getting 2, 3, 4, or more divorces.

> If you dig into the data, you'll see it's closer to "100 marriages this year, 50 divorces -- omg half of marriages end in divorce!" This is only true if there were zero existing, previous marriages before this year.

Ok, but your objection is only true if there were zero divorces in previous years. If the divorce count is half of the marriage count for the year every year, then it is indeed half.

Not if the delta of both counts decrease, which is exactly the point the person you replied to already made. Divorce lags marriage by definition, since you can't get divorced without getting married.

> The extremely high failure rate indicates it is either a flawed concept entirely, […]

Are you sure? Maybe the flaw is the notion that the marriage partnership should be expected to last for life. There are real reasons why some personal partnerships benefit from a legal framework that allows for division of labor and joint decision-making powers.

It's not financially subsidized in Canada. My wife and I pay several thousand more in taxes than if we were roommates.

I've always thought that was a great disincentive to marriage if one were logical.

This is curious: are you filing jointly or separately?

In general, filing jointly typically results in either the same or lower taxes. I'm not sure under what conditions under which it would be higher.

https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tips/does-being-married-affect-yo...

> Designed to save something

A therapist shouldn't be trying to save anything here, they should just help the couple digest their own feeling and get to where they really need to be, remaining as a couple or not

Maybe the premise that "marriage is [meant to be] forever" is what is flawed,

A minority of people account for the majority of divorces. Not that many people are doing it wrong.

41% (the divorce rate for first marriages), while technically a minority, is still quite a lot of people. I wouldn't go so far as to say "not many" are doing it wrong.

A cursory review of cultural and “critical” output of the past few decades shows a consistent onslaught on the institution of marriage. While difficult to quantify, it seems reasonable to consider the significant (if not critical) impact of these factors on the erosion of the institution of marriage.

I think what has had a far larger impact on the divorce rate has been the fact that women now have choices. They frequently have their own careers and finances, which makes it much easier for them to get out of bad marriages.

You could view this as making it easier to quit, or as making it easier to escape abuse (I suspect it's a little bit of both), but I think that the effect of feminism and (greater) equality in the workforce is a more significant contributor to the divorce rate than any cultural attacks on the institution of marriage.

Edit: it's less immediately obvious, but I think that feminism and equality have also had the same liberating effect on men. Marriages can be just as emotionally abusive for men, and if your wife has her own career you're less likely to be ostracized for "kicking her to the curb", which makes leaving a bad marriage easier. Long term, this can strengthen marriages. If you know they can leave, you'll likely work harder to make them want to stay.

Of course this was a significant factor. But even your reposte here is symptomatic of the fact that the society at large was not offered a 'positive' development of the institution of marriage in context of social and financial liberation of women. It's been decades of specifically highlighting the 'family' as a 'problematic construct'.

Or cultural norms change over time. Like the institution of marriage in the West, which is now based on romantic feelings and nuclear families. Whereas in the past it was for political, financial or religious reasons, with there being extended family around in the context of living in the same village for life.

To quote Paul Atreides when he became fed up with Fremen customs, "Ways change!".

I can quote from I Ching [Book of Changes] regarding change as the invariant element. This change was ideologically driven by an elite subset of society. Certainly not an organic development, in my opinion.

[p.s. Did we read the same Frank Herbert? My Frank Herbert highlighted the fact that "the ways" in Arakis were influenced by an occult group called the Bene Gesserit ..]

[p.s.s.: https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Missionaria_Protectiva -- point being societal 'change' is almost always subject to organized control, internal or external.]