DTWNews

The past really does matter. A new study revealed that women who have more than two sexual partners before marriage increase their chances of getting a divorce.

According to Headlines and Global News, the studies, conducted through the 1980s and 1990s, found that women who married as virgins or after sex with just one partner were less likely to get a divorce. The same can be said for women with up to nine partners.

On the contrary, women with two partners or ten and up showed a trend of divorce.

Taking into consideration that women are the first to file for divorce in almost 80% of cases, the results seem to match up.

The study was conducted by Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor at the University of Utah Department of Family and Consumer Studies and an adjunct professor in the university’s Department of Sociology. He compiled data between 2002 and 2013 from three waves of information from the National Survey of Family Growth, a survey on marriage and sexual behavior.

The results of his findings showed that compared to just 50 years ago, women now are more likely to have sex before marriage. Furthermore, women with even two sexual partners had the highest divorce rates between the 1980s and 1990s.

“Today’s young adults do have lengthier sexual biographies than do people born prior to 1950,” Wolfinger said. “Still, the extent of hooking up has been exaggerated by a prurient and overheated media, and sometimes by young people themselves.”

In 2014, 7,497 Wayne County residents applied for marriage licenses. That same year 29,708 Michigan residents filed for divorce. Of those who filed, 3,781 were residents of Wayne County.

“Perhaps it is not unexpected that having many partners increases the odds of divorce. The greater surprise is that this only holds true in recent years. Previously, women with two partners prior to marriage had the highest divorce rates,” Wolfinger said.