Myth Buster: Half of all marriages end in divorce

Statistics show this cartoon is misleading.

There appears to be quite a gloomy view of marriage in our society about marriage, especially considering, as they say, 50 percent of marriage end in divorce.  But, according to livescience.com, this percentage is not even accurate.

The website notes:

It's a common trope: Half of the couples who tie the knot will be untying it before long. In fact, it's true that the divorce rate is about half of the marriage rate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of 2009, the marriage rate was 6.8 per every 1,000 adults in America, and the divorce rate was 3.6 per 1,000. But simply tallying those numbers doesn't provide a very accurate picture.

That's because the people who are divorcing each year aren't the same ones getting married; the comparison basically stacks up two different generations and equates them as if they're one and the same. Instead, a more revealing way to look at divorce rates is to calculate how many people have ever married and then subsequently divorced. These numbers peg the peak divorce rate, in the 1970s, at about 40 percent. [Marriage & Divorce in America (Infographic)]

The number has declined since, driven by fewer divorces among college-educated men and women, who tend to delay marriage.

So, you see, the divorce rate isn't as high as they say.