Tag Archives: Pre-marital Sex

News

New study finds that teens who lose their virginity are more likely to divorce

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The UK Daily Mail reports on a new study that shows that women who lose their virginity as teenagers are more likely to divorce. (H/T Dina, Mysterious C)

Excerpt:

Women who lost their virginity as young teenagers are more likely to divorce – especially if it was unwanted, according to new research.

The University of Iowa study shows that 31 per cent of women who had sex for the first time as teens divorced within five years, and 47 per cent within 10 years.

Among women who delayed sex until adulthood, 15 per cent divorced at five years, compared to 27 per cent at 10 years.

The findings were published in the April issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Author Anthony Paik, associate professor of sociology in the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, examined the responses of 3,793 married and divorced women to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.

The study showed, however, that if a young woman made the choice to lose her virginity as a teenager, there was no direct link to a marital split later in life.

If the sexual act took place before the age of 16 women were shown more likely to divorce, even if it was wanted.

Thirty-one percent of women who lost their virginity during adolescence had premarital sex with multiple partners, compared to 24 per cent of those who waited.

Twenty-nine percent experienced premarital conceptions, versus 15 percent who waited.

One in four women who had sex as a teen had a baby before they were married, compared to only one in ten who waited until adulthood.

Only one per cent of women surveyed said they chose to have sex at age 13 or younger, compared to five per cent at age 14 or 15, and 10 per cent at age 16 or 17.

Forty two per cent reported that their first sexual intercourse before age 18 that was not completely wanted.

Fifty eight per cent of the group waited until age 18 or older to have sex. Of those, 22 per cent said it was unwanted, compared to 21 per cent who said it was wanted.

Researchers concluded sex itself may not increase the probability of divorce, while factors such as a higher number of sexual partners, pregnancy, or out-of-wedlock birth increased the risk for some.

This dovetails nicely with the previous studies that Mysterious C sent me that showed that, for men and women, the more sexual partners you have before marriage, the more unstable your marriage will be. See the related posts for more. If you’re still a virgin, like me, (and I’m in my mid-thirties now, and I’m saving my first kiss for my engagement), then there is nothing wrong with you. If you want a stable marriage, then you don’t have sex before you’re married. There are tons of virgins out there, and there is a huge difference in the quality of romantic relationships when both parties exercise self-control with physical touching.

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Polemics

Which types of unions have the highest rates of divorce?

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A quiz for you, from Ruth Blog.

Question:

Same sex couples have had the legal right to form domestic partnerships in several European countries.  Denmark was the first to introduce registered partnerships, in 1989. Norway was second, in 1993, then Sweden in 1995. Data from 2 of these landmark countries, Norway and Sweden, as well as California,  have been studied enough to answer this question:

What types of unions have the highest rates of divorce?

  • Opposite sex married couples: men and women are so different, it is a wonder they ever stay married.
  • Male unions: men are naturally less committed, and less monogamous, so their partnerships don’t endure.
  • Female unions: women get so emotionally distraught over things. A union of two women, without any male counter-balancing their roller-coaster, is very unstable.

Hint: the answer is the same in all three countries!

And here’s the answer:

Female unions seem to have the highest divorce rates, followed by male unions, followed by opposite sex unions.

“For Sweden, the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the risk for heterosexual marriages, and that the divorce risk for female partnerships is nearly double that for men.”

“For Norway, divorce risks are 77% higher in lesbian partnerships than in those of gay men.”  (The Norwegian data did not include a comparison with opposite sex couples.)

In California, the data is collected a little differently. The study looks at couples who describe themselves as partners, whether same sex or opposite sex. The study asks the question, how likely is it that these couples live in the same household five years later. Male couples were only 30% as likely, while female couples were less that 25% as likely, as heterosexual married couples, to be residing in the same household for five years.

The only contradictory data I have found to this pattern is from the Netherlands. In the Dutch data, same sex couples have a 3.15 times greater dissolution rate than opposite sex cohabiting couples, and a 3.15 x 3.66 or 11.5 times greater dissolution rate than opposite married couples. But, female couples seem to be more stable than male couples.

Do you know what else is bad for relationships? Premarital sex and cohabitation. And that’s not my opinion, those are the facts. (See the studies below) Either we are going to get serious about constraining our selfish behavior to protect children from instability, or worse, or children are going to suffer. When adults substitute their own selfish ideologies for God’s design for marriage, children suffer.

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News

New study finds that cohabitation damages children

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Story here from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

The astonishing speed at which traditional family life has collapsed is laid bare today.

Shocking figures reveal that births outside marriage are at their highest level in two centuries and nearly half of children can expect their parents to separate by the time they turn 16.

Nine out of ten couples now live together before – or instead of – tying the knot. Before the Second World War, it was fewer than one in 30.

From a situation 30 years ago where it was often considered shameful to have a child outside of wedlock, it has now become the norm.

Some 46 per cent of children are born to unmarried mothers, according to research by the Centre for Social Justice.

The think-tank said a child growing up in a one-parent family is 75 per cent more likely to fail at school, 70 per cent more likely to become a drug addict, 50 per cent more likely to have an alcohol problem and 35 per cent more likely to be unemployed as an adult.

Some 48 per cent of children are likely to see their family break up before they are 16. Ten years ago, it was 40 per cent.

Gavin Poole, executive director of the CSJ, which was set up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, said: ‘Current high levels of cohabitation are a key factor in the rise in family breakdown in our country and this paper shows that we have not been here before.

‘Marriage and commitment tend to stabilise and strengthen families and cannot be ignored. The peculiarly high levels of family breakdown found in Britain are at the heart of the social breakdown which is devastating our most deprived communities.

‘We cannot ignore the wealth of evidence showing that the family environment in which a child grows up is key in determining their future life outcomes.’

The report says the decline in the traditional family is a crucial factor in the social decay that is blighting Britain.

It finds that – at around 5 per cent – levels of births outside marriage were the same in the 1950s as in the 1750s.

They remained at low levels through the 19th century and stayed flat until the 1960s. But since then they have soared. By the late 1970s, 10 per cent of babies were born to single or unmarried parents, by 1991 it was 30 per cent and today it is 46 per cent.

The authors of the research point to evidence suggesting that in the 1950s and 1960s, only 1 to 3 per cent of couples cohabited before marriage.

Today, nearly 90 per cent of couples live together before, or instead of, getting married.

Family breakdown, the experts claim, is being fuelled by the growth in the less stable relationship of cohabitation. ‘A child growing up in a fractured, chaotic or fatherless family is far less likely to develop the pro-social skills essential for success later in life,’ Mr Poole said.

The thing to understand about the secular left in Britain is that they are not really against poverty – not if it means telling people to be more responsible and informed about abstinence, courting and marriage. They are willing to “fix” poverty by taking money from one group and giving it to another group. But they are not willing to prevent poverty by holding people accountable to moral standards. That would be so judgmental, divisive and offensive to poor people. And if there is one thing the secular left stands for, it’s not making people feel bad for their own decisions. The secular left would rather have adults doing whatever makes them feel good than to have children grow up healthy and happy in stable environments.

Marriage is the best way to prevent child poverty, so let’s have some policies that promote marriage and discourage cohabitation.

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