number of divorces per 1,000 population has gone down primarily because many couples are now living together instead of getting married and more people are remaining single. (There were approximately 10.6 marriages per 1,000 people in the early 1980s, but only 6.8 marriages per 1,000 people in 2009–2013 and 6.5 per 1,000 people in 2018.6) However, it is not true that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce today (a statistic that is sometimes repeated in popular media reports). After extensive statistical