I've been recording the number of local divorces and the number of marriage licenses issued each year since 1996. |
Meanwhile we have no stats on how many partners are living together without registering their relationships. This means we have no record of how many of these are experiencing undocumented "divorces" with equally distressing effects on children and/or other close family members and friends.
There are of course cases of ongoing abuse, infidelity and addictions where remaining together becomes untenable. Or when couples are either unable or unwilling to get the help they need to repair what has become dysfunctional in their relationship. But whatever we as a community can do to help support stable and healthy marriages can only be for the good of us all.
Here are the official numbers provided by the local circuit court:
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
2019 947 487
2020 882 445
2021 994 466
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 legal breakups of people who live in the City or County. However, it is 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." (And 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 many years, one might safely conclude that the odds of a given marriage surviving are just over 50%, not nearly as good as we would like.
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