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| Rockingham County Court House |
Since our population has increased significantly in the past two decades one would expect a steady rise in marriage numbers, but that isn't the case. Those numbers have been flat even though our population has increased by some 25% over the past two decades.
That hardly means fewer couples are pairing up, but simply that we have ever more people hooking up and breaking up in undocumented (common law) relationships. Unfortunately, we have no record of how many of cohabiting couples go through their own "divorces", with consequences just as distressing as those experienced by their legally married counterparts.
With fewer registered marriages we should also be able to expect fewer registered divorces. But that isn't true, either, as you will see below:
Year Marriages Divorces
1996 873 387
1997 950 405
1998 964 396
1999 932 405
2000 947 365
2001 1003 438 (most annual marriages
2002 976 421
2003 961 399
2004 959 437
2005 889 381
2006 929 389
2007 925 434
2008 950 405
2009 903 347 (fewest annual divorces)
2010 879 358 (fewest annual marriages since 1996)
2011 933 433
2012 995 445
2013 924 484 (most annual divorces)
2014 972 427
2014 972 427
Given the fact that every divorce, documented or otherwise, profoundly
impacts not only the couple involved, but the lives of parents,
siblings, friends and especially any children involved, the number of
our neighbors scarred by dysfunctional marriages and destructive
divorces each year is incalculable.
I'm not prepared to make a cause and effect case here, but I can't help but note that as the percentage of adults who marry has steadily decreased relative to our population, the number of inmates in our jail has increased by over 500%! Of course that is much more likely a result of a criminal justice system gone awry than anything else, but neither mass incarceration nor more and more family breakups are signs of a truly healthy community.
I'm not prepared to make a cause and effect case here, but I can't help but note that as the percentage of adults who marry has steadily decreased relative to our population, the number of inmates in our jail has increased by over 500%! Of course that is much more likely a result of a criminal justice system gone awry than anything else, but neither mass incarceration nor more and more family breakups are signs of a truly healthy community.
Click here for additional posts on divorce.
Here's the graph to the year 2012:
3 comments:
While your statistics are interesting and discouraging for your particular community it might be hopeful to interject the new data on the rate of divorce in America. That half of all marriages end in divorce is no longer the immutable fact we thought it was: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/divorce-rate-declining-_n_6256956.html
SAD! After 47 years my wife is still the apple of my eye. Lucky me.Tom The Backroads Traveller
I have never believed that half of all people who marry get divorced. And well over half do stay together, Many of the divorces are the second or third ones for the same people. And of course one might expect fewer legal divorces when there are fewer legal marriages. If everyone were to simply cohabit, we would technically reduce divorces to zero. But I will read the link. Thanks!
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