Love is in the air ...
Bobbie Jo King and Zech Young are all smiles after getting their Bell County marriage license. The couple intends to marry Saturday. Courtesy photo
Tiffany and Nathan Marek of Temple share a kiss after eating wedding cake after their Nov. 1922 ceremony. The Mareks are one of 2.5 million couples nationwide who tied the knot last year. That trend, however, did not hold in Bell County where only 3.724 marriage licenses were issued. In 2019, 4,137 licenses were issued and the number has decreased each year. Shelby Jarosek photo
Divorce rate is down and marriages are lasting longer in US
DAVID STONE | OUR TOWN TEMPLE
Today, local residents are celebrating love and relationships by exchanging cards, flowers and candy. And, according to numbers released by the US Census Bureau, there may be a growing number of these celebrations in Temple and nationwide.
That’s because divorce rates in America are the lowest they’ve been since the late 1960s, and the average duration of US marriages has increased almost a full year since 2010, from an average of 19 years to 19.9 in 2022.
Last year in the United States, only 13.6 marriages in 1,000 ended in divorce, and that “stay married” trend also applied here in Bell County, where records show a significant drop in divorce cases filed over the past four years.
According to Lacey Martindale, assistant chief deputy of the Bell County District Clerk’s office, the number of divorces in the county have dropped every year since 2019 when 3,030 cases were filed. In 2022, that number plunged to 2,498.
While divorce has dropped in recent years, 2022 was a boom year for brides and grooms nationwide, but not so much in Bell County. Across America, 2.5 million couples tied the knot last year, up from 1.69 million during the pandemic year of 2020 and up slightly from the annual average of 2.4 million.
But Bell County has seen a steady drop in marriage licenses issued during the past four years.
According to County Clerk Shelley Coston, her office issued 4,137 marriage licenses in 2019. As to be suspected, that number dropped during the COVID year of 2020, but only by 198 licenses. In 2022, the number slid to 3,724.
Dr. Wen-Mei Chou, coordinator of the Marriage, Family & Child Counseling program at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, said the dropping rates in Bell County is related to changing attitudes regarding the marriage concept.
“More and more people choose to cohabitate without tying the knot,” Chou said. “When they do file for marriage, they show more commitment to face the difficulties and keep the relationship going.”
“Although the younger generations tend to avoid proclaiming their religious affiliation, we still have a big traditional Christian population or population raised under Christian values here in Bell County,” he said. “Those Christian values do support people taking their marriage seriously.”
“With the public awareness regarding the fragility of marriages, the younger generations are less impulsive in filing for marriages and divorces,” he added.
According to Chou, the accessibility of professional counselors and mental health practitioners in Bell County has increased significantly in the past 10 years.
“The counseling training program at UMHB has been developing great practitioners for 20 years,” Chou said. “Prior to 2012, many of our brightest alumni moved away from Bell County for job opportunities or better financial rewards, but in the past 10 years most of our excellent alumni have decided to stay and serve our local communities.”
Chou also said that the stigma associated with using a mental health service such as counseling has changed in recent years.
“People are aware of and appreciate the value of professional counseling,” he said. “When marriages face difficulties, people are more willing to seek help from licensed marriage and family therapists. They are also aware that hiring a divorce attorney is much more expensive than hiring a therapist who will support the relationship through difficulties.”
Dr. Jude Austin, a marriage and family counselor with a private practice in Belton who also is a professor in the UMHB counseling program, agrees with Chou that more couples are seeking guidance with marital issues.
“People are more self aware, and the stigma on relational health has been lowered,” Austin said. “More couples are willing to seek help, and that gives them a better chance at a healthy relationship and a longer marriage.”
“Divorce rates have been high for so long, and people don’t want to become a statistic,” he said. “I believe couples are more aware of what they would be bringing to a marriage, therefore they are working on themselves before getting married.”
Austin said relationships and marriages often parallel economics — when times are hard, more people get married so they can help support one another.
“When it’s hard to be a single-income person, it may be financially beneficial to have a partner,” he said. “Marriage can help take the financial burden off one person.”
“In therapy with couples, I often hear comments such as, ‘I want to make this work’ or “I want this marriage to last,’” Austin said. “Couples often have kids, aging parents, car and house payments, and these ties often keep people together and keep them trying. If they don’t have financial ties, they may not try as hard to stay together.”
As relationships, living arrangements and family life continue to evolve for American adults, a rising share are not living with a romantic partner, according to the Pew Research Center.
A new Pew analysis of Census Bureau data finds that 38 percent of adults ages 25 to 54 are unpartnered, meaning they are neither married or shacking up with a partner. This 2022 finding is up sharply from 29 percent in 1990.
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