Item from the Smart
Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics
Collection
LEADERS IN THREE STATES TAKE STEPS TO CUT DIVORCE RATES: Arkansas,
Wisconsin, Louisiana
By Mike McManus
...
Community Marriage Policies are bringing down divorce rates in dozens of
cities. We
have helped the clergy of 116 cities adopt these reforms and have been in
awe of the results which are not wholly explicable.
Nationally, there has only been a 1.3 percent decline in the number of
divorces nationally from 1,179,000 divorces in 1979 to 1,163,000 in 1997.
But with a CMP in a two county corner of Northwest Arkansas, they fell 6
percent in one year, saving 150 marriages and 7 percent in Eau Claire in
two years. In Kansas City, Kansas and two suburban counties, divorces
fell from 1,530 in 1995 to 1,001 in 1997, a remarkable 35 percent plunge
in two years.
Most astonishing is El Paso, which had 5,126 divorces in 1996 when clergy
adopted a Community Marriage Policy (CMP) in September of that year.
There were 5,009 the next year, a big drop to 4,041 in 1998 and if the
pattern of the first eight months of 1999 holds up for four more months,
there will be only 1,919 divorces this year according to the county
clerk's office. ''That is a 63 percent drop. I am incredulous,'' said
Barney Field, Director of El Paso for Jesus.
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