Can Your Home State Sway Your Chances of Divorce?

 Posted on October 22, 2014 in Divorce

Is it possible that the state in which we live can impact our chances of divorce?

Many U.S. citizens may credit late journalist Tim Russert and his coverage of the Bush vs. Gore 2000 presidential election for providing us with a visual color by number representation of the electoral college. However, in all factuality, the first political map separating the states dates back to the 1880 presidential election, Garfield vs. Hancock.

Historian Susan Schulten discovered a census-based map printed to a 1883 atlas that clearly illustrates how the country was politically and theoretically segregated by “red state” and “blue state” long before the birth of animated network election coverage. Perhaps even more interesting, separating our nation as “red state” and “blue state” as a method to define religious and political viewpoints does not coincide with our previous notions of the interior division of our country.

In a relative study, “Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding the Impact of Conservative Protestantism on Regional Variance in Divorce Rates” published to the American Journal of Sociology, professor Jennifer Glass of the University of Texas at Austin explored the science behind why divorce is uncharacteristically prevalent in conservative states rather than in the country’s more liberal regions. 

Originally, it was believed that less than favorable socioeconomic situations of the southern conservative beltway played a major role in the relatively high divorce rates. But as Glass and her team discovered, it was actually the conservative religious expectations placed on marriage that lead to marital instability and higher instances of divorce.   

Glass and her team uncovered the following factors as major contributors:

• The pressure of marrying at a young age;
• The non-approval of cohabitation before marriage;
• The teaching of abstinence-only sex education; and
• The inability to access emergency contraceptives.

These four factors as in relation to a “young” marriage were found to increase instability often leading one spouse to seek the counsel of an experienced divorce attorney.

Director of the National Marriage Project, W. Bradford Wilcox, also weighed in on the findings. In his estimation, while conservative and religious views often serve as a deterrent to divorce, the suggestion that conservative Protestant beliefs prominent in the “red” region clearly debunked all original thought and theory.  

In agreement, Glass and her team further concluded that even as conservative and strong religious beliefs are believed to support and even protect the institution of marriage, the divorce rate has even increased in the non-religious sector among conservative areas of the southern beltway giving a little less credence to “red state” and “blue state.”

No matter your political party affiliation, Geneva divorce attorney Douglas B. Warlick has been campaigning as a strong legal advocate dedicated to protecting the legal rights of his clients. As a formidable and seasoned litigator, Attorney Warlick is the right choice for anyone seeking a divorce residing across Kane, Kendall, Dekalb and DuPage counties. Contact our Geneva office at 630-232-9700 for more information today.