Divorce Data Show Many in Utah Don’t Wait for Death to Part Them

Published March 8, 1990. A few weeks ago, I was in San Diego, California to give two speeches on marriage. One speech was on Friday night, and the other was on Saturday evening. I had a few spare hours on Saturday, so what did I do? What any professor of marriage and family would do—review the latest marriage and divorce statistics for the nation. That may not sound like an exciting Saturday afternoon to you, but I did find some trends that interested me and quite honestly are cause for concern.

For some time, I have felt that many couples in disrupted marriages in the nation file for divorce too soon. This apparently is also true right here in our own state of Utah.

The statistics I was reviewing on marriage and divorce were compiled and provided by the Utah Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Records and Statistics in Salt Lake City. The bureau does a commendable job.

According to the report for 1986, the most recent year for which statistics are available, people in the western and southern areas of the United States divorce earlier than in other parts of the country. Couples who divorce do so on the average after about seven years in the United States, confirming the notion of the seven-year itch. But the statistics vary according to geographical area with residents of some states divorcing earlier.

Married couples in the eastern part of the United States apparently wait longer to terminate the marriage.

Of the states who reported in 1986, these were the 10 with the longest median duration of marriage until divorce:

STATE                       YEARS UNTIL DIVORCE

Massachusetts             8.8

Pennsylvania               8.7

Rhode Island               8.2

Connecticut                 8.0

Vermont                      7.8

Wisconsin                   7.6

Michigan                     7.5

New Hampshire          7.3

New York                    7.3

Iowa                            7.0

Following are the 10 states with the shortest median duration of marriage until divorce in 1986:

STATE                       YEARS UNTIL DIVORCE

Alaska                         5.0

Alabama                      5.3

Wyoming                    5.5

Kansas                         5.5

Utah                            5.6

Georgia                       5.6

Idaho                           5.6

Kentucky                    5.7

Tennessee                    5.7

Montana                      6.0

But things have been worse for the Western states. In 1979, according to the same report, Utah and Wyoming led the nation in the shortest duration of marriage until divorce with each having a median of 4.8 years.

I wonder why people in the Intermountain West opt for divorce some two years earlier than those living in the eastern part of the United States? Are we less patient? Are we less committed? Do we give up too early, comparatively, when trying to make our marriages work? Perhaps these are questions that only a university professor sitting in a motel room on Saturday afternoon in San Diego, California, would wonder.

Maybe you have an explanation for these trends.