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Comment by johnfn | Hacker News Reader

The result that living together before marriage leads to worse marriages is a really surprising one. The justification is that it leads to "sliding" into a marriage which you may not otherwise have chosen because once you've cohabitated, a breakup is significantly more logistically challenging: breaking a lease, dealing with pets, etc. That does make a lot of sense, when you think about it!

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You are saying "leads to" but the data just say "is correlated with". As the article points out, assuming causality can't really be justified, because of selection effects. For example, it may be that having lots of different sex partners before marriage doesn't "lead to" a worse marriage, rather perhaps those who tend to have lots of different partners may just be less happy with an exclusive arrangement.

Correlation doesn't imply causation but all causal relationships will yield correlated variables. So ... correlation is a good place to dig in more to try to identify and then demonstrate a causal relationship.

There's a certain type of "correlation isn't causation" person who believes the phrase means correlation is useless,as opposed to interesting, but incomplete.

It's also research done by an institution with the stated principles of faith and patriotism so take everything with a grain of salt. I bet if their data pointed to lawless polygamy they wouldn't be advertising this. Anyone can lie with statistics, even to themselves.

I understand the logic of what you're saying but doesn't it tend towards thinking that are no trustworthy sources of information other then those that postulate things you already believe in or at least those that agree with conventional wisdom?

Not that I have a better idea - generally chasing down methodological errors if not ought right falsehood is more trouble then it's worth (liars can lie faster then the truth can move) but it makes me edgy when I say it out loud.

This could all be because in this particular case I don't particularly disagree with the premise.

>> For example, it may be that having lots of different sex partners before marriage doesn't "lead to" a worse marriage, rather perhaps those who tend to have lots of different partners may just be less happy with an exclusive arrangement.

Either way, if you're looking for a long term relationship you should avoid those with high body counts. In some cases causality doesn't matter but you get an indicator either way.

This is a fun date point that has been known by secular sociologists for decades.

It also brings up really good coffee table talk, because in the area of ethics, if it's true, an atheist could use this data to rationally conclude that cohabitation before marriage is unethical, and they would be correct in a framework that assumes maximizing human flourishing is a good thing.

>The result that living together before marriage leads to worse marriages is a really surprising one

It's not. People who take marriage very seriously (people with traditional values) are less likely to live with people before marriage, so if we select such people we'd naturally expect them to have longer marriages since they value marriage for marriage's sake.

cough have you seen how many divorces typical conservative leaders have?

I suspect that the temptation to divorce and upgrade in some way may be greater for men with a lot of power and/or money. So I think we would expect leaders of any type to be more likely to do this.

According to this article, the states with the highest divorce rates are: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with...

Do any of those strike you as anything but predominantly conservative?

Arkansas 10.70% Oklahoma 10.40% Nevada 10.20% New Mexico 10.20% Kentucky 10.10% Wyoming 10% Delaware 9.40% Utah 9.40% Kansas 9.20%

I would like to see these stats compared to the average age of marriage by state. The top states regarding divorce are, overall, rural and relatively poorer (except for Delaware.)

I'd also like to see the marriage rate by state for comparison, too. Arkansas has more than 2x the marriages per capita of California (lowest divorce rate), for instance, but only 20% fewer divorces...

Again, this article is a bad conceptual and statistical analysis of the data.

Sure - but good luck untangling the various factors because urban environments are almost always Democrat (blue) and rural environments are almost always Republican (red).

By large margins.

Maybe folks have to move to rural areas after a divorce because they’re broke, for instance. Or older people tend to stay in conservative areas, and younger ones move to the cities, and older folks are more likely to be divorced?

And since populations are mobile, maybe they got married in the blue (or red state) then moved and got divorced.

But if someone says ‘Conservatives have fewer divorces’, that really seems implausible considering the data.

Conservative leaders are very likely to only cynically perform their supposed values. For money.

People that authentically hold conservative values work differently. I suspect that the lower divorce rate among this cohort has a lot to do with another statistic: that 65-70% of divorces are initiated by women. Conservative values would seem to inhibit a woman from initiating divorce, resulting in a lower rate.

also: this article is poorly thought out junk top to bottom, imo.

I have very rarely known anyone who authentically holds conservative values (or liberal ones!) when it’s very inconvenient for them. I’ve known a lot of people who pretend too though, but maybe that’s selection bias.

The whole ‘abortions for me, not for thee’ situation plays out a lot for instance. And the highest porn use areas have always been conservative from what I can tell.

The article is junk. But the data lines up with other sources I found.

It’s just inconvenient for the narrative.

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