"Since 1972, marriage rates in the US have fallen by almost 50%, and are currently at the lowest point in recorded history"

"The share of children born outside of marriage has increased substantially in almost all OECD countries"

https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces

But you are right divorce rates vary, for instance decreasing post covid. I was thinking on the century scale. But also percentage of people entering stable commitment, and so even the possibility of divorce is much lower

> "The share of children born outside of marriage has increased substantially in almost all OECD countries"

This seems like it's unrelated to divorce.

I don't think it's fair to look at divorces on a century basis given that no fault divorce only became possible in the United States in 1969 - before that you needed to prove there was some sort of abuse or infidelity involved.

It certainly becomes more complicated to try and draw trends, and impossible to assume it was stronger family value that held them together before that point - in fact, the peak in the early 70s indicates that once it became possible it was used with gusto.

Umm, my dear. My issue was childhood trauma due to family breakdown

I already noted you corrected me on divorce varying. Thankyou. You cleared that up, so let me be clearer:

In this thread someone stated abuse was easily less damaging to them than separation from their parents

That reflects my experience of seeing children get through war better than family breakdown

My central point is that family breakdown causes trauma

Correlating that with stats becomes interesting, and your point on divorce is interesting, but marriage being at the lowest levels in recorded history and i would assume single parent families being at the highest levels is indicative of increased family breakdown

That is my point

Given that marriage has decreased so much, you might assume commitment has decreased. Presumably only the committed to it are taking the plunge. Hence less divorce. Hence more trauma