Editing Divorce (section)

==Causes==
In the western world as a whole, two thirds of divorces are initiated by women.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Arndt |first1=Bettina |title=The Sex Diaries : Why Women Go Off Sex and Other Bedroom Battles |date=2009 |publisher=Melbourne University Press |isbn=978-0522855555 |page=41 |quote=In countries across the Western world, women are the ones who make the decision to leave in two thirds of all marriages.}}</ref> In the United States, 69% of divorces are initiated by women and this may be due to higher sensitivity to relationship difficulties.<ref>{{cite web |title=Women More Likely Than Men to Initiate Divorces, But Not Non-Marital Breakups |url=https://www.asanet.org/women-more-likely-men-initiate-divorces-not-non-marital-breakups/ |website=American Sociological Association |date=August 22, 2015}}</ref> 66% of all divorces occur in couples without children.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-08-01 |title=The Dirty Little Secret About Childless Couples |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/are-childfree-couples-doo_b_913051 |access-date=2024-11-26 |website=HuffPost |language=en}}</ref> An annual study in the UK by management consultants [[Grant Thornton]], estimates the main [[proximate cause]]s of divorce based on surveys of matrimonial lawyers.<ref name="gt">{{cite web|url=http://seidellaw.com/top-causes-of-divorce|title=Top Causes of Divorce: San Fernando Valley Divorce Attorney Joel S. Seidel|website=Seidellaw.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203011740/http://seidellaw.com/top-causes-of-divorce|archive-date=2014-02-03}}</ref>  The main causes in 2004 were:
*[[Adultery]] – 27%
*Family strains (e.g., from the inlaws) – 18%
*[[Domestic violence]] – 17%
*[[Midlife crisis]] – 13%
*[[Addiction]]s, e.g. [[alcoholism]] and [[Problem gambling|gambling]] – 6%
*[[Workaholic|Workaholism]] – 6%
*Other factors – 13%

According to this survey, husbands engaged in extramarital affairs in 75% of cases, and wives in 25%. In cases of family strain, wives' families were the primary source of strain in 78%, compared to 22% of husbands' families. Emotional and physical abuse were more evenly split, with wives affected in 60% and husbands in 40% of cases. In 70% of workaholism-related divorces it was husbands who were the cause, and in 30%, wives. The 2004 survey found that 93% of divorce cases were petitioned by wives, very few of which were contested. 53% of divorces were marriages that had lasted 10 to 15 years, with 40% ending after 5 to 10 years. The first 5 years are relatively divorce-free, and if a marriage survives more than 20 years it is unlikely to end in divorce.

Social scientists study the causes of divorce in terms of underlying factors that may motivate divorce. One of these factors is the age at which a person gets married; delaying marriage may provide more opportunity or experience in choosing a compatible partner.<ref name="red-v-blue">{{cite web |date=2010-05-09 |title=Red Families Vs. Blue Families |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126653602 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100513061833/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126653602 |archive-date=2010-05-13 |access-date=2010-05-22 |publisher=[[NPR]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Becker |first1=Gary S. |last2=Landes |first2=Elizabeth |last3=Michael |first3=Robert |year=1977 |title=An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability |journal=Journal of Political Economy |volume=85 |issue=6 |pages=1141–88 |doi=10.1086/260631 |s2cid=53494363 }}</ref>

Wage, income, and sex ratios are other such underlying factors that have been included in analyses by sociologists and economists.<ref>Gary S. Becker (1981,1991). ''A Treatise on the Family'', [[Harvard University Press]], {{ISBN|0-674-90698-5}}</ref><ref>Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman,1993. On the Economics of Marriage – A Theory of Marriage, Labor and Divorce. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.</ref>  Couples with a high [[household income]] are less likely to divorce than poor couples.<ref name=":02">{{Cite report |url=https://www.csus.edu/faculty/m/fred.molitor/docs/wedding%20expenses%20and%20marriage%20duration1.pdf |title='A Diamond is Forever' and Other Fairy Tales: The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration |last1=Francis-Tan |first1=Andrew |last2=Mialon |first2=Hugo M. |date=2014-09-15 |doi=10.2139/ssrn.2501480 |location=Rochester, NY |language=en |ssrn=2501480 |s2cid=44741655}}</ref>

Other personal factors, such as attending religious services regularly and having at least one child together, also reduce the risk of divorce.<ref name=":02" />

Other factors include the [[wedding]] itself:  Spending relatively little money on the wedding, but having a relatively high number of guests in attendance (e.g., 50 or more people) and going on a [[honeymoon]] trip, is associated with a lower risk of divorce.<ref name=":02" />  High-cost weddings may strain marriages by causing [[debt stress]].<ref name=":02" />

=== Cohabitation effect ===
The elevation of divorce rates among couples who [[Cohabitation|cohabited]] before marriage is called the "cohabitation effect". Evidence suggests that although [[Correlation does not imply causation|this correlation is partly due to two forms of selection]] (''a'') that persons whose moral or religious codes permit cohabitation are also more likely to consider divorce permitted by morality or religion and (''b'') that marriage based on low levels of commitment is more common among couples who cohabit than among couples who do not, such that the mean and median levels of commitment at the start of marriage are lower among cohabiting than among non-cohabiting couples), the cohabitation experience itself exerts at least some independent effect on the subsequent marital union.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Manning |first1=W. D. |last2=Cohen |first2=J. A. |doi=10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00960.x |title=Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages |journal=Journal of Marriage and Family |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=377–387 |year=2012 |pmid=23129875 |pmc=3487709 }}</ref>

In 2010, a study by Jay Teachman published in ''[[Journal of Marriage and Family]]'' found that women who have cohabited or had premarital sex with men other than their husbands have an increased risk of divorce and that this effect is strongest for women who have cohabited with multiple men before marriage. To Teachman, the fact that the elevated risk of divorce is only experienced when the premarital partner(s) is someone other than the husband indicates that premarital sex and cohabitation are now a normal part of the courtship process in the United States.<ref>Teachman, Jay, "[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.00444.x/abstract Premarital Sex, Premarital Cohabitation, and the Risk of Subsequent. Marital Dissolution Among Women] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150815052942/http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.00444.x/abstract |date=2015-08-15 }}", ''[[Journal of Marriage and Family]]'', September 2010</ref> This study only considers data on women in the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth in the United States. Divorce is sometimes caused by one of the partners finding the other [[unattractive]].<ref>Bell, Inge Powell. "The double standard". Trans-action 8.1-2 (1970): 75-80.</ref>

Recent studies show that the cohabitation effect on divorce varies across different cultures and periods. Another article published in ''[[Journal of Marriage and Family]]'' found that when cohabitation was uncommon in pre-reform China, premarital cohabitation increased the likelihood of subsequent divorce, but this association disappeared when cohabitation became prevalent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zhang |first1=Yongjun |year=2017 |title=Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution in Postreform China |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12419 |journal=Journal of Marriage and Family |volume=79 |issue=5 |pages=1435–1449 |doi=10.1111/jomf.12419 |access-date=5 April 2021 |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417182335/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12419 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Serious medical illnesses ===
Women are six times more likely to be separated or divorced soon after a diagnosis of [[cancer]] or [[multiple sclerosis]] than men.<ref>[https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.24577 Glantz, Michael J., et al. "Gender disparity in the rate of partner abandonment in patients with serious medical illness." Cancer 115.22 (2009): 5237-5242.]</ref> A review found a small decrease of divorce rate associated with most cancer types, but stated [[Methodology|methodological]] weakness for many published studies which studied the association between divorce and cancer.<ref>[https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.828656 Fugmann, Dominik, et al. "A systematic review: The effect of cancer on the divorce rate." Frontiers in psychology 13 (2022): 828656.]</ref>