Divorce in the early years of marriage in England and Wales: results from a prospective study using linked records

Abstract

SummaryA representative sample of over one thousand couples who married during 1979 in England and Wales was followed from the date of marriage until mid-1984 to investigate the characteristics of couples who divorce soon after marriage.Couples who apparently lived together before marriage had a below average chance of early divorce, whereas couples where the addresses of the partners before marriage were very close had a significantly high rate of early breakdown. The chance of early divorce was significantly above average for spouses marrying in their teens and for both husbands and wives who, at their marriage, belonged to social class V. Couples who married with a civil ceremony had an above average (and those marrying with a religious ceremony a below average) risk of early divorce, but such differences were found to be negligible on analysing the results from a matched case-control study in which each ‘case’ marriage (one which ended in early divorce) was matched with a ‘control’ marriage (one which did not end in early divorce). Age at marriage, marital status before marriage and the social class of both partners, the factors controlled for in the case-control study, are likely to be amongst the strongest predictors of early divorce.