Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Rhoades and Stanley "Before I Do" Report for the National Marriage Project


The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia released a report today with analyses by Galena Rhoades and me using our national data set from the Relationship Development Study.

The report can be found at the National Marriage Project website.

There are also two brief videos--one from Galena Rhoades and one from me--that can be viewed via links on the NMP website for this report.  (Or, if you rather, just click here for Galena or here for Scott.)

In the report, we look at all sorts of premarital relationship behavior (with prior partners and with the partner people marry) as predictors of overall marital quality.

We examine the following predictors and more:

- Having a child from a prior partner
- Having cohabited with people other than who you marry
- Having sex with others, prior to marriage, in addition to whom you marry
- The number of sexual partners one has had
- If the relationship with the spouse began as a hook-up
- If a couple lived together before a specific commitment to marry
- If, when cohabiting, they slid into it or made a decision about it
- Weddings (if had one) and how many attended

If you prefer a version optimized for reading in a browser, you can click here.

Have at it!