Why Our Divorce Numbers Remain Flat

This just in, the latest data from our Circuit Court
on local marriages and divorces.

As you can see from the list below, both marriage and divorce numbers have remained fairly stable in our community since 1996, when I began keeping record. So in spite of a significant increase in our local population during that time period we haven't seen any comparable increase in the number of marriage licenses issued. 

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

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.