The topic I chose to research on is the increasing divorce rate. The reason I chose this topic is because I recently went through a divorce myself. I think everyone knows by now that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce every day. So, after going through a divorce myself, I would like to know why. Today, 59% of the population is married, up from 62% in 1990 and 72% in 1970. One of the first things I looked at was the average length of a marriage. I found that the average length of first marriages that end in divorce for men is 7.8 years and 7.9 years for women. I found this interesting since my marriage lasted a little over seven years. Some other interesting statistics I found indicate that there are 5.5 million unmarried couples living together and that 10% of the population is divorced, up from 8% in 1990 and 6% in 1980.” (http://forums.almaghrib.org/archive/index.php/t-23761.html) The next thing I searched for was what could be a major cause of the increasing divorce rate and I I found an article online from the Journal of "Marriage and Family" from May 1995. It read: "Using a quasi-experimental pre-post intervention plan and archival data from the National Center for health statistics, a team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma examined the effect. The passage of a no-fault divorce law has impacted the divorce rate in all 50 states. Education and income data from the U.S. Census Bureau and religiosity data from the Glenmary Research Center were used to assess the role of education, median family income, and religiosity in the diet. no-fault divorce. Researchers found that no-fault divorce laws had a significant positive effect on the divorce rate in the middle of the paper......and that the percentage of women who initiate divorce is much lower. Additionally, the higher rate of female initiators is likely because men are more likely to behave “badly.” Husbands, for example, are more likely than wives to have problems with alcohol, drug abuse and infidelity.” (Popenoe)Works CitedAuthor: David Popenoehttp://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/marriage/debunking-divorce-myths10.htmhttp://www.scfamilylaw.com/2007/06/articles/divorce/top-divorce-myths -and-facts/http://forums.almaghrib.org/archive/index.php/t-23761.htmlPaul A. Nakonezny, Robert D. Shull, Joseph Lee Rodgers. “The Effect of No-Fault Divorce Law on the Divorce Rate in All 50 States and Its Relationship to Income, Education, and Religiosity.” _Journal of Marriageand the Family_ (May 1995): 477-488.--Summary posted on discussion group by Mark Thomas