Divorce rates in the bible belt
 

This is lovely, from Sully:

Preserve the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Outlaw divorce.

Bumper sticker - They can have my marriage license when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

That's not surprising--people surrounded by perceived immorality are the ones most vocal about wanting change. (Hell, the Taliban originally came into power because they took a strong stand against the raping of young boys.) I don't think the Value-Police types in Texas are worried about those debauched gays in Massachusetts as much as they're worried about those debauched gays next door to them.

One would have to ask before drawing a final conclusion ... what are the rates of cohabitation without marriage in the lowest divorce rate states? And the rate of those relationships to end? I'm guessing that throwing in those numbers would even things out quite a lot.

Residents of southern states might be expected to be somewhat more "traditional" in terms of values and behaviors than the Northeastern states, and therefore marrying would be more likely than mere "shacking up."

You mean, they actually went ahead and made a legal partnership and probably religious vows, and then broke up, as opposed to those naughty blue-staters who made no such pledge and then broke up?

Its really not fair to compare marriage across geographical areas. There is a statistical anomoly present when folks generally marry their 14 year old cousins, there is going to be a higher divorce rate. It has nothing to do with values.

I think that does have something to do with values.

If a man has fourteen wives, and if one wife divorces him, then does that count as only one-half a divorce? Or do we say the man is only one-fourteenth divorced? These may be relevant questions when statistics are taken geographically.

Lets see then, [new]7.14% of women get divorced but 100%[/math] of men do. So you're saying only lesbians should be allowed a state sanction?

Seems to me fair enough that since a big distinction between Protestants (and, famously, Anglicans/Episcopalians) and Catholics is that only the last objects to divorce, and the Bible Belt is mostly Protestent, divorce rates should be high. They've got it, might as well flaunt it.

In the red states they cohabit before marriage......as brother and sister. :biggrin:

Interesting point wolf, though I have to say that having been born in NC and lived there till I was 21, there was a fair amount of shacking up.

If we take the divorce rate of 2.4 / 1000 population in MA and 4.1 / 1000 population in TX that was given above we can calculate that the divorce rate in TX is 1.71 times that in MA.

According to the US Census web site, for the 2000 census, the # of unmarried-partner households (this includes m/f, m/m, and f/f) divided by the total state population is 0.0149 for TX and 0.0201 for MA. In this case the rate for MA is 1.35 times that in TX.

This is not very helpful because there is nothing about the rate at which such households "divorice."

Anecdotal experience leads us to understand that when people who have been shacking up successfully for many years decide "oh, what the heck" and tie the knot, the relationship is pretty much over and the divorce attorneys will be doing all the communicating from here on in.

Kinda like "if it ain't broke..." :D

I could have sworn that I also read that the abortion rate for said bible belters are higher than most also.

I'd have to look that one up...

What do you expect, when even church leaders take a compromising position on their OWN book? When church leader induct gay priests? Hypocrisy at it's finest.