More people buying, and keeping, the whole pig now that the sausage is free

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon reminds us that, that 'winger Jeremiads about modern society notwithstanding, divorce rates are plummeting.

You hear a lot of people running around wringing their hands and talking about the 50% divorce rate. What’s little understood is that number is way out of date—due in large part to a lot of feminist cultural reforms, the divorce rate has been creeping down for a long time now. Now it’s at the lowest rate it’s been since the 70s.

The story of ever-increasing divorce is a powerful narrative. It is also wrong. In fact, the divorce rate has been falling continuously over the past quarter-century, and is now at its lowest level since 1970. While marriage rates are also declining, those marriages that do occur are increasingly more stable. For instance, marriages that began in the 1990s were more likely to celebrate a 10th anniversary than those that started in the 1980s, which, in turn, were also more likely to last than marriages that began back in the 1970s.

...
Meanwhile, because of many factors, including feminism, people began minimizing the risk factors for divorce in their own lives. They married later in life. Liberalized contraception and abortion laws made it easier for people to marry for love and not out of necessity. Single motherhood became more socially acceptable, again giving reason for people to avoid making bad marriages in the first place. Women got more education—less education for women, the higher possibility of divorce. People began to reduce the number of children in a family to a more manageable size, reducing financial stress and just the sheer chaos and fighting at home. Because people believe marriage is for making them happy, not that they belong to marriage, they put more work into making a marriage that suits them instead of just getting married and trying to bend themselves to the institution.
Read the quote in context here.

I'd have added that a dramatically lessened emphasis on virginity -- fetishized for girls, yes, but also largely demanded of boys -- and the corollary devaluation of the ghastly aphorism "why buy the cow when the milk is free**" has had a big impact as well.

I say I would have except Marcotte beat me to the punch

Even that dreaded female promiscuity you hear so much about has helped lower the divorce rate. Like most things worth doing, romance takes practice. Few of us luck out right off the bat and have all the skills that it takes to pick the right person, much less get along with him. The conservative attitude towards marriage—that it’s best with no practice going in—makes no sense. It’s like saying that the best way to go to college is to avoid getting through regular school. Relationships are a learn by doing thing, a lot like driving. I’d also add a plug in here for the kind of promiscuity that scares people even more, the casual sex kind. I find that being monogamous is a lot less stifling if you’ve had an opportunity to play around in the past and get it out of your system. The idea that there’s value in a little adventure during youth has been considered true enough for men to create a hoary old cliche about wild oats—there’s no reason to think women would be any less curious or despair any less for the fun they didn’t have because they married too young.

Call me a prudish libertine but idea that, as with the "cow" aphorism, sex would be dangled a reason to get married (because, you know, we all make such *great* decisions when we're horny) demeans the institution more than practically anything!

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** Or its equally regressive counterpart "why buy a whole pig when you just want a little sausage."