Chastity and facts?

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Amber2

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I heard in a chastity talk that Jason Evert made the claim that people who don’t live together before they are married usually have a longer marriage than people who do. I repeated that in a debate and the person I was talking to asked me for proof.
Anybody knows?
Amber
 
Do you have a university library nearby? My university library had volumes and volumes of Family Sociology Journals, and there are countless secular studies that link premarital cohabitation and divorce. For every 1 study that showed no link, there were 10 others that did.

Any Sociology department at a major university should be able to help you, too. Soc grad students love this kind of stuff, and can point you in the right direction. 😉

If you need a specific name to search for (in the soc journals), try Dr. Pepper Schwartz or Dr. Mary Laner.
 
In addition to the real publications, there was just an article in Cosmopolitan magazine a few months ago that said the exact same. I saw it in my hair salon tonight actually.
 
Be careful with this one. It isn’t so much that living together causes marriages to fail but rather people whose moral outlook permits living together also permits divorce.

That is to say, simply not living together" won’t help make a strong marriage. The person has to believe living together is wrong, and that belief system will dispose them toward believing in the sanctity of marriage, and thus not act in a way that motivates their spouse to divorce them, and not see divorce as an option if their spouse does act in such a way.
 
BillP said:
Be careful with this one. It isn’t so much that living together causes marriages to fail but rather people whose moral outlook permits living together also permits divorce.

That is to say, simply not living together" won’t help make a strong marriage. The person has to believe living together is wrong, and that belief system will dispose them toward believing in the sanctity of marriage, and thus not act in a way that motivates their spouse to divorce them, and not see divorce as an option if their spouse does act in such a way.
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Yes…very nice post Bill. Statistics are so often misused and are misleading. I hear the one that “couples practicing NFP have X (ridiculously low) divorce rate.” It is not that act of practicing NFP that keeps them from their divorcing, but their entire belief system that led them to practice NFP leads them to reject divorce as an option.

–Rico
 
BillP said:
Be careful with this one. It isn’t so much that living together causes marriages to fail but rather people whose moral outlook permits living together also permits divorce.

That is to say, simply not living together" won’t help make a strong marriage. The person has to believe living together is wrong, and that belief system will dispose them toward believing in the sanctity of marriage, and thus not act in a way that motivates their spouse to divorce them, and not see divorce as an option if their spouse does act in such a way.
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Very well spoken and a point that not all may associate the two together.

Bravo! 👍

Paul
 
Rico_S said:
Statistics are so often misused and are misleading. I hear the one that “couples practicing NFP have X (ridiculously low) divorce rate.” It is not that act of practicing NFP that keeps them from their divorcing, but their entire belief system that led them to practice NFP leads them to reject divorce as an option.
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Welcome to Catholic Answers, Rico!

I think this may be partly true. But there’s also strong anecdotal evidence to suggest that couples practicing NFP actually acquire skills that help them become better spouses. They learn to communicate better about sensitive issues like sex, children, fertility, finances, etc. They learn self-discipline. They learn to be generous with their bodies in ways that couples using contraception do not. Thus, while the selection factor (that people who are more likely to use NFP are also less likely to get divorced) may impact these statistics, it’s not unreasonable to assume that spouses do become better people by practicing NFP.
 
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