bee farmer: are You seriously trying to prove to a woman who actually DID marry being a virgin and hated it that it is in fact the right thing to do? 
You have theories, I lived it. Which one of us is pulling stuff out of out ass?
No, I am not saying it is fact. I am saying there is a 97% success rate. That's not 100%, so it is not fact.
A lady being a virgin when she marries is not the only thing necessary to a good marriage, but it is a good foundation.
What if there are no kids?
That's irrelevant. You made an agreement that the marriage was for life. A person is only as good as their word is, and if their word is worthless...
My ex and I did not have kids (and not much sex either ) we were both college students.
That's irrelevant. You made an agreement that the marriage was for life. A person is only as good as their word is, and if their word is worthless...
Why be unhappy in this case?
For better or for worse..
Maybe the unhappiness was because you didn't want to deal with the responsibilities you had agreed to?
Are You able to think logically at all? I though You worked for big tech LOL.
Yes, I am able to think rationally,. (Let's not forget that you were the one who tried making the emotional argument that you should be granted some leniency because you were in college. It's irrelevant if you were young. You knew what you were doing.)
Yes the society is becoming less religious and traditional so unlike before the only women who wait for marriage to have sex are the ultra religious ones whereas before most women waited because this is what a good girl was supposed to do in a more traditional society!
Stop your BS. You made the argument that women are divorcing more now because they are not staying in loveless or abusive relationships, and that they were more likely to stay in a bad marriage because of religious beliefs, and that virgin marriage was associated with religious beliefs.
If that was true, then more women who married as virgins would be divorcing now, because they would not feel bound to stay in a bad marriage because of religion. However, the data shows that women who marry as as virgins now divorce LESS than women who married as virgins in past generations when people were more religious.
so unlike before the only women who wait for marriage to have sex are the ultra religious ones whereas before most women waited because this is what a good girl was supposed to do in a more traditional society!
Maybe we should ask "why" a girl was a "good girl" for marriage if she married as a virgin. Why don't good guys want to marry girls who aren't virgins? Maybe it is because men want to avoid divorce, (long-term happiness) and they recognize that the risk for divorce increases based on the number of sexual partners the girl has had. (Just like we don't want to be in a car wreck, and we know riding in a car with a drunk driver increases the accident risk based upon the amount of alcohol the driver has had.)
Could it be that if a girl marries as a virgin, she only has a 3% divorce rate?
And if a girl loses her virginity prior to marriage to the man she marries, she has a 10% divorce rate.
And if a girl has sex with even one different man prior to marriage, the rate of divorce is 20%.
And if a girl has sex with 2 men prior to marriage, the divorce rate jumps to around 40%.
And if a woman is divorced and remarries, her divorce rate is now 72%.
At what point does she go from being a good girl, to the equivalent of riding with a drunk driver? It doesn't take many sexual partners for a girl to increase the risk of an accident. (Just like it doesn't take many drinks to take a good driver and turn them into a high risk of an accident.)
An interesting side note is that there is only a very slight correlation between the number of sexual partners for men and risk of divorce, and it is nowhere near as pronounced as for women.
Hell, *I* waited and I was never religious, my parents were never religious. So yes the women who marry as virgins nowadays are much less likely to divorce simply because they are more religious meaning practicing Christians/Jews/Muslims/Hindu and not just practicing but taking their religion to heart!
You just contradicted yourself, and reinforced my argument that not all virgin brides are religious.
whereas before they were mostly like me, simply good girls from good families without many religious convictions fearing that a good guy will not marry a girl who isn't a virgin.
If any guy who marries a girl who is not a virgin, there is a high risk for divorce. Why would a good guy want to take on that extra risk unnecessarily?
So yeah the divorce rate among women who marry as virgins IS going down because the women who marry as virgins have much more religious convictions than the women who married as virgins before
Just like you, right?
Believe it or not, some women are able to recognize that a low risk of divorce is something they want, and they are willing to delay a little gratification now, so they can have a lifelong marriage. And it is not limited to women with strong religious beliefs.
And the reasons to stay a virgin are different for these women. I never said it should be going up
You said their reason for being a virgin bride was due to strong religious beliefs, and those strong religious beliefs were the reason more women stayed in bad marriages. Logic would dictate that with weaker religious beliefs, even virgin brides would divorce at a higher rate. However, the data shows the complete opposite. Virgin brides are divorcing at an even lower rate now.
Another easy way to look at it is before more women married as virgins and among this larger subset of women there was much more variety: some very devout and larger % were just well raised women afraid nobody would marry them otherwise. Now the % of women who save themselves for marriage is much smaller and their subset consists mostly of fundamentalist Christians, mormons, amish, orthodox jews, and indian and muslim immigrants. These are much less likely to divorce.
The data does not support this hypothesis though. Christians, Mormons, Amish, Jews, etc are getting married to women with more pre-marital sexual partners now and divorcing at higher rates than they used to divorce. Why?
Yet virgin brides are divorcing at lower rates. Why?
Nobody wants to admit the cold harsh reality and say that the emperor has no clothes. Nobody wants to admit the truth to the age old saying - you can't turn a ho into a housewife.
The cold hard reality is this - if a man wants a lifelong marriage and avoid divorce, marrying a girl who has never been married and has a low body count is the best indicator of marital success.
And marrying a girl who is divorced or has even 2 or more prior sexual partners will have at least a 40% divorce rate.
An even harsher reality is that 98% of people have lost their virginity by age 22. Which means that your best chances of a lifelong marriage are marrying your high school sweetheart.
A guy older than his mid 20's needs to ask himself what a girl could offer that would make it worthwhile to accept that increased risk of divorce. If he asks himself that - that's when the harsh reality sets in.
