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Prior studies that analysed the relationship between the age at which a couple marry and their likelihood of divorce almost exclusively suggested that the risk of divorce diminished the older the couple were. Now, though, a study has suggested that this is no longer the case.

By analysing data gleaned from America’s National Survey of Family Growth, Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, has discovered that individuals that marry in their mid-to late-twenties are the least likely to divorce. Those who marry at a later age, however, are five per cent more likely to divorce for ever year past the age of 32.

Surprisingly, Wolfinger’s findings were consistent even following him having factored a variety of causal factors – such as socioeconomic status, prior sexual history, education, religious beliefs and the size of the metropolitan area within which responds live – strengthening the argument that those that marry in later life are more likely to find themselves divorced.

With these findings contravening all previous trends, though, Quickie Divorce feels it pertinent to consider what could have potentially facilitated them - particularly those posited by the study’s author.

Wolfinger argues that it is possible that individuals that do not marry until after the age of 32 become acclimatised to being unmarried and are unprepared for the compromises required to succeed in such a relationship as a result. He also theorises that people that wait until they are in their thirties to become married are those who are predisposed to marital failure, with those better suited to marriage having eloped at an earlier age.

Whilst the reasons for this trend are unclear, though, what is clear is that the traditional belief that those who wait to marry are more likely to enjoy long-lasting relationships is now open to debate.