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Youtuber Louis Rossman has said in one of his videos that

There are studies on this; there is a direct correlation between number of sexual partners and likelihood of failed marriage, based on real marriages. These are not made up statistics.

He claims that there are studies behind this and that they would be in the description of his video, but they are not.

What truth is there behind this claim?

tuskiomi
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  • That is odd verbiage: "the likelihood of failed marriage"? – Pete B. Jul 26 '17 at 18:24
  • Correlation is not causation. I'd assume people with failed marriages tend to have additional sexual partners after said marriage. Or is the claim strictly about sexual partners before the marriage? and if so, was the number self reported before or after the marriage failed? – Peter Jul 26 '17 at 18:42
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    @Peter That is not what this question is stating, nor inciting. I laid the claim out word by word, and I put my question exactly as I meant it. – tuskiomi Jul 26 '17 at 18:53
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    How does one become a "distinguished computer repair man"? Isn't that rather like being a distinguished plumber? Although skill in either field is both admirable and useful (as well as remunerative, at least for plumbers :-)) how does it qualify one to speak as an authority/notable source on marriage & divorce? – jamesqf Jul 26 '17 at 19:04
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    The title says "divorce", but the body says "failed marriage"; are they supposed to be the same? My grandmother had a failed marriage for decades, but she only got divorced very recently. – Erik Jul 26 '17 at 19:46
  • I agree with @Erik, it would be good to clarify (I assume that there is an overlap between people who have few sexual partners or remain virgin until marriage, and those that stay in unhappy or abusive marriages; are those "failed marriages"?). You might want to consider alternative sources for the claim to make it less vague. Maybe this [blog post](https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability) by a right-wing institute? It explicitly claims a relation between number of sexual partners and likelihood of divorce. – tim Jul 26 '17 at 19:50
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    @CPerkins what does that matter? – tuskiomi Jul 26 '17 at 20:31
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    @CPerkins this Louis Rossmann guy has 300k subscribers so he's famous so it's a notable claim, and if you read through the highest voted questions you see a bunch of "I found this pic on the internet" "Is it true that..." maybe the standards are a bit too tight nowadays – daniel Jul 26 '17 at 21:27
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    I've edited the question to remove the distraction about computer repairman. That's not the relevant part. The relevant part is that 600+ people hit like on the video, making it notable. – Oddthinking Jul 27 '17 at 00:44
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    Note that the strength of one's religious beliefs will influence both of these numbers--those following religious dictates will generally have few sexual partners and be less likely to divorce if the marriage isn't working well. – Loren Pechtel Jul 27 '17 at 03:11
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    @Oddthinking: Why does a mere 600 likes make something notable? I could fake that by hand. – jamesqf Jul 27 '17 at 05:17
  • @jamesqf: I agree this is on the low side of notability, but how would you like us to decide? There's no strict cut off defined. – Oddthinking Jul 27 '17 at 07:35
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    I still think this question needs clarification with regards to what "number of sexual partners" means. As phrased, it could mean total lifetime (both before and after a potential divorce), before marriage or *concurrent* sexual partners. – Paul Jul 27 '17 at 09:55
  • Correlation v causation. If this were true those Mormons (and of other religions) who have many wives would also have many divorces. – RedSonja Jul 27 '17 at 11:39
  • @Paul If you have had sex with someone, they're a sexual partner. what's unclear? – tuskiomi Jul 27 '17 at 13:25
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    @tuskiomi: There were very valid points raised. The whole question is much less clear-cut than you are making it to be. To recap: 1) What constitutes a "failed marriage"? Being unhappy? Living apart? Divorce? 2) What constitutes "sexual partners"? Before marriage? During marriage? Lifetime? -- We could say that much of this "you had / have other partners, we fail" is culturally induced. So what's the correlation, being sexually active / emotional failure, or stupid cultural conventions / conventions failure? ;-) – DevSolar Jul 27 '17 at 13:41
  • @DevSolar as in the question, divorce is what I'm asking for. and I said before, a person is your sexual partner if you have had sex with them. it really is that simple. – tuskiomi Jul 27 '17 at 13:44
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    @tuskiomi: Your question title and the quote from the source don't match with regards to divorce / failure, which is what commenters are trying to point out. Also, you didn't answer 2) -- before marriage, or during marriage? (I admit that "lifetime" doesn't really make sense.) – DevSolar Jul 27 '17 at 13:45
  • @DevSolar I did answer number two. What constitutes "sexual partners"? A:a person is your sexual partner if you have had sex with them. No ifs ands or buts. The time does not matter. Time does not dictate if someone is your sexual partner, and it's ludicrous to indicate otherwise.The reason I use divorce is because it's the most easily measurable direct indication of dissatisfaction in marriage. – tuskiomi Jul 27 '17 at 13:47
  • @tuskiomi: OK, if you refuse to acknowledge the shortcomings in your post, there's little I can do about it. – DevSolar Jul 27 '17 at 13:48
  • @DevSolar likewise with your acknowledgement of my answers to your questions (or lack thereof, for that matter). – tuskiomi Jul 27 '17 at 13:48
  • Can we be more specific, in the question, about the claimed correlation? There's nothing in there that specifies what the correlation is that is being talked about. More partners = success? Less partners = success (success = not ending in divorce)? Certainly, more partners ***during*** a marriage probably correlates pretty strongly to divorce.... – PoloHoleSet Jul 27 '17 at 14:48
  • @PoloHoleSet I think you misinterpreted. by positive correlation, I mean that *more* partners means *more* chance of divorce. as opposed to *more* partners means *less* chance of divorce. – tuskiomi Jul 27 '17 at 14:51
  • @PoloHoleSet: "Certainly, more partners during a marriage probably correlates pretty strongly to divorce..." -- [citation needed]. There's the non-consensual kind, and the consensual one. The latter doesn't correlate as strongly as you might think. ;-) – DevSolar Jul 27 '17 at 15:03
  • @DevSolar - I'm referring to one partner having other partners, without necessarily consulting the formal, legal partner, not "swinging" couples. :D – PoloHoleSet Jul 27 '17 at 15:05
  • What exactly are you skeptical about here? "There is a positive correlation between the number of countries travelled and the number of immigration stamps in one's passport." Does this sound skeptical as well? – Masked Man Aug 02 '17 at 04:06

1 Answers1

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From Counterintuitive Trends in the Link Between Premarital Sex and Marital Stability:

This research brief shows that the relationship between divorce and the number of sexual partners women have prior to marriage is complex. I explore this relationship using data from the three most recent waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) collected in 2002, 2006-2010, and 2011-2013. For women marrying since the start of the new millennium:

  • Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce, but this only became true in recent years;
  • Women with 3-9 partners were less likely to divorce than women with 2 partners; and,
  • Women with 0-1 partners were the least likely to divorce.

Live Science writes about the study I cited above:

Virginity and stability

Still, the study found that having more sexual partners was associated with reduced marital stability. Women who married as virgins were less likely to divorce within five years across all three waves of the study — just 11 percent in the 1980s and 6 percent in the 2010s.

But women who reported two sexual partners had the highest divorce rates in the 1980s and 1990s, the study found. For instance, in the 1980s, about 28 percent of these marriages dissolved within five years; by comparison, 18 percent of marriages ended when the women had more than 10 premarital sexual partners.

...

By the 2000s, women who had more than 10 sexual partners saw their marriages dissolve within five years almost 33 percent of the time, the study found.

Community
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Sakib Arifin
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    How is this "most certainly true"? The link you quote here suggests that the effect *peaks* at 2 sexual partners. The highlighted passage is misleading with regards to a positive correlation between number of sexual partners and likelihood of divorce. – Paul Jul 27 '17 at 09:45
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    The linked article literally opens with "When it comes to sex before marriage, a lot may be better than a little.", which is the exact opposite of the claim made in the answer. – Erik Jul 27 '17 at 10:58
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    The article states that a woman who only ever had two sexual partners -- her husband and one other -- is more likely to divorce than *either* a woman who only had her husband *or* a woman who had more partners. As the average number of sexual partners is *higher* than two ([four](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37853719/ns/health-sexual_health/t/surprising-sex-statistics/#.WXnwAelCRaQ) for women in the USA), I don't see a positive correlation between number of sexual partners and likelihood of divorce. – DevSolar Jul 27 '17 at 13:53
  • @DevSolar - 2010s, virgins: 6% at 5 years. 2000s, >10 partners, 33%. They don't give a stat for virgins in the 2000s. – anongoodnurse Jul 27 '17 at 18:20
  • @DevSolar Not only that - first one should show a relationship between marriages and happiness. I doubt all of those virgin marriages are happy ones. – T. Sar Jul 27 '17 at 20:33
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    +1; the cited study does appear to have useful information. It also seems reasonable to say that there's a positive correlation in the 2000 series, though the same doesn't seem quite as true for either the 1980 or 1990 series. The unreliability of this correlation over those periods strongly suggests that it's not reliably causative, but rather something else appears to be at play. For example, women who had no premarital sex always had the lowest divorce rates; this may reflect the personality/upbringing of those women more than a consequence of their chastity. – Nat Jul 28 '17 at 01:29
  • As noted in the article, the demographics of the women in various categories also shifted a lot over time; for example, in the 1980 series, only 2% of women had 10+ partners, while 18% had 10+ partners in the 2000 series. Such major shifts in the demographics may be one major cause for the correlations shifting over time. – Nat Jul 28 '17 at 01:32
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    @T.Sar The question is about correlation. This answer shows a correlation, and you dispute it because of the (speculated) causes for the correlation. "Someone who married as a virgin... are more often than not those women that are abused by their husbands but don't leave them" is a very bold claim and should have evidence to support it. – KSmarts Aug 01 '17 at 14:45
  • @KSmarts Check out middle-eastern countries and a few African ones and how they consider virginity a good thing, and how abused are their females. It should be more than enough evidence. – T. Sar Aug 01 '17 at 15:01