Glenn T. Stanton, writing for Focus on the Family, looks at demographic factors that influence marital stability:
Some of the key demographic factors decreasing likelihood of divorce are as follows:
Annual income over $50K
Having a baby within year of marriage (vs. before)
Being over 25 when married
Family of origin non-divorced
Religious affiliation
Some college education
Studies consistently show the following:
1) The biggest factors contributing to marital success are higher income, increased education level, higher age at marriage and higher levels of religious commitment and activity.
2) The strongest factors contributing to marital failure are young age at marriage, poverty, remarriage and low education.
(Thanks to: Steve at Lessons from the Road.)
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I wonder if there’s any statistical analysis showing the ratio of positive factors to negative in successful marriages.
My wife and I were married just out of college, at 22. My parents are divorced, hers are not. At first, our income was around $50K, now it’s considerably less. However, we had our son three years after we were married, and are both Christians.
So, against we have being young when married, divorce in the family, and low income. For us we have religious affiliation, college education, and having a child after marriage. Of course, our low income is a consequence of my wife staying home with our son, and I certainly wouldn’t consider us to be in poverty, so maybe that’s really not a negative factor.
And what’s a ‘successful’ marriage, anyway?
The professor in my Intro to Psychology class in college admonished us to wait until after 25 to be married. He said that there was some major chemical change in the brain that happened in the early 20s and it was best to wait until after that change.
Jared,
There is a myriad of statistical analysis on positive and negative factors in marriage: the trick is finding the time to wade through and make sense of it all.
Steven,
Now you’ve piqued my curiosity; I’m going to have to find our what chemical change he was talking about.
I was 20 when I got married: whatever happened in my brain, my wife put up with me… and has been putting up with me for 25 years!
I read this post and comments sometime last week then at church this weekend we talked to a guy that works with youth. He recently attended a youth missions conference that said psychologists are now saying that the frontal cortex of the male brain is not fully developed until he is 25. For women it is 23-24.
My husband was 26 when I married him, so I knew what I was getting
This information does not need to get into the hands of teens! It will drive teachers crazy!