Some people divorce several times, so 50% of marriages ending with divorce may correspond to much smaller part of the population.

40% of first marriages end in divorce on a quick google. 60% of second marriages and 70% of third marriages.

Edit: not clear if a once-wed person marrying a newbie counts as a first or second though. I’d imagine that could be significant.

Depends on the lawyers haha

But more seriously… if you aren’t willing to take a guaranteed decently large pay increase (which scales with future income growth) with the added chance of losing more to legal fees and arbitration later on… you probably shouldn’t get married. You’re probably correct that for a middle class family the pure fiscal return will likely be positive if your marriage lasts just a handful of years.