This just in, the latest data from our Circuit Court on local marriages and divorces. |
Does this mean there are fewer people in intimate and exclusive relationships? No. It only means fewer of them are documenting them, some perhaps assuming it will be easier for them to break up if they aren't officially 'married'. But when these unregistered couples (who have 'left father and mother' and begun an intimate and exclusive relationship just like their married counterparts), do break up, as they frequently do, they experience the same distresses divorced partners go through, or worse. They just aren't counted in the divorce numbers 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
2014 972 427
2015 955 474
2016 985 612 (most annual divorces)
2017 983 426
2017 983 426
2018 935 476
Clarification 1: Marriage numbers are based on the number of marriage licenses issued, and include those who come here from other localities to marry, whereas divorce numbers include only the breakups of people who live in the City or County. However, it seems logical to assume that a roughly equal number of residents from here marry in other jurisdictions as marry here from other communities, so the numbers above should be reasonably valid for comparison purposes.
Clarification 2: One cannot assume a rate of divorce based on any one year's numbers, as in "45% of first time marriages in our community will end in divorce." Many of the above couples are marrying or divorcing for a second, third or fourth time). But with numbers like these over a period of this many years, one might safely conclude that the odds of a given marriage surviving are not nearly as good as we would like.
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