Marriage and Divorce rate trends per 1,000 people in the United States

This week we take a look at Marriage and Divorce rate trends per 1,000 people in the United States. 

As you can see, the marriage rate declined during the harsh period of the Great Depression. It also spiked when the United States entered World War II, with couples marrying before the husband shipped off overseas. There was a similar, albeit lower uptick in US weddings at the start of World War I.

"Marriage rates stayed low during the years of the conflict, then soared again immediately after the war’s end in 1945.

Divorce likewise tapered off during the Depression, when few people had the resources to make any substantial life changes. The war brought many couples together, but it also drove many apart. The stress of deployment strained some fragile partnerships to the breaking point. Wives left husbands for new partners they met while their spouse was overseas. Husbands left wives for the English or German girlfriends they’d met on deployment.

And many of those couples who married hastily in a fervor of patriotism, romance, or some other desire before the war sobered up to realize that they really weren’t that compatible after all." according to Corinne Purtill's article on Quartz.