Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
R ESEARCH relevant to the question of whether sexual intimacies before marriage are related to the success or failure of marriage, is scarce and somewhat inconclusive. reported by Hamilton,1 Davis,2 Terman,3 Locke,4 and Burgess & Wallin,5 all tend to support the hypothesis that marriage is more successful where there has been no premarital sexual intercourse. Yet, most of these authors express certain cautions and qualifications. Furthermore, the Burgess & Wallin data do not support the theory that coitus before marriage has an adverse effect on the sexual relationships after marriage.6 It was for the purpose of throwing additional light on this problem that the present study was undertaken. Our focus has been upon the phenomenon of premarital pregnancy as a factor in divorce, viewing the latter as an index of marriage failure. In an earlier article by the senior author, it was reported that premarital conception was involved in approximately twenty per cent of all first births within marriage, and that disproportionately higher percentages were associated with the depression marriages of 1929-31, a young age at marriage, a non-religious wedding, and a laboring occupation.7 These generalizations were based upon analyses of official marriage and birth data for Tippecanoe County, Indiana, for the years 1919-1921, 1929-31, and 1939-41.8 However, these earlier data provided no basis for testing the possibility of a relationship between premarital pregnancy and the success or failure of marriage. Since that time, we have secured from the files of the County Clerk's office available data for every divorce occurring in Tippecanoe County from the beginning of 1919 through the end of 1952. Names from this list were then carefully checked against those of the earlier marriage and birth lists to determine which, from our original samples, were also divorce cases. In this manner we were able to assemble complete marriage, birth, and divorce information on 137 cases.9 Preliminary description of divorce data. Divorce (137 cases) constituted 8.95 per cent of the total sample (1531 cases).10 Undoubtedly, this percentage, as found, is lower than one might expect if he were considering all present and future divorces * The two earlier articles under this same general title dealt with the spacing of the first child from marriage and the measurement of premarital pregnancy. They are to be found in Social Forces, 31 (May, 1953), pp. 346-351, and American Sociological Review, 18 (Feb., 1953), pp. 53-59, respectively. 1 Gilbert V. Hamilton, A Research in New York: Albert & Charles Boni Inc., 1929, pp. 393-95. 2 Katharine B. Davis, Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women, New York: Harper & Bros., 1929, p. 59. 3Lewis M. Terman, Psychological Factors in Marital Happiness, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1938, pp. 324-25. 4 Harvey J. Locke, Predicting Adjustment in New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951, p. 156. 5 Ernest W. Burgess and Paul Wallin, Engagegagement and Chicago: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1953, pp. 353-390. 6 Ibid., p. 366. Italics supplied. 7 Harold T. Christensen, Studies in Child Spacing: I-Premarital Pregnancy as Measured by the Spacing of the First Birth From Marriage, American Sociological Review, 18 (February 1953), pp. 53-59. 8 Tippecanoe County's population is fairly homogeneous as to race and nativity, with less than 1 per cent Negroes and about two per cent foreign born. 9 Help in recording and checking was given by Witold Krassowski, Sybille Fritzsche, Marilyn Swihart, Delores Aurenz, Nancy Falk, and Lenore Miller. The earlier marriage and birth data had been gathered entirely by Olive P. Bowden. 10 Since our present concern is with the relationship between divorce and the timing of conception, our overall sample is the 1531 marriages for which we found evidence of the birth of a first child. For further detail see Christensen. Inc. cit.
Christensen et al. (Tue,) studied this question.