No, it really wasn’t. “Perhaps it is not unexpected that having many partners increases the odds of divorce,” writes Nicholas H. Wolfinger. The University of Utah professor just published a study of divorce rates among women who’ve been married five years. (The data for men wasn’t as useful and besides, he adds, men aren’t as honest about their experiences.)

Writing on the blog of the Institute for Family Studies, he says he found that

• Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce, but this only became true in recent years;
• Women with 3-9 partners were less likely to divorce than women with 2 partners; and,
• Women with 0-1 partners were the least likely to divorce.

A quick note: The last figure is a little misleading. He notes later in the article that “premarital sex with one partner substantially increases the odds of divorce.” In other words, virgins are more likely to marry successfully than women who slept with just one man. That’s true even though that one man was probably their future husband.

We think of sin as a walk: one step, then two, then three, etc. We think we have to take a lot of steps before we get dangerously far away and that we can always scurry back to safety. It isn’t and we don’t.

But here’s the confusing thing: Until the 2000s, women with just two premarital partners were the most likely to divorce. They were more likely to divorce than women with a lot more. Even now their divorce rate is basically the same as the rate for women with ten or more partners. (“Not statistically significantly higher” is the way Wolfinger puts it). It’s notably higher than that for women with three to nine partners.

Surprisingly, Two is Worse Than Nine

That doesn’t make any sense. The more partners, the more baggage. The more partners, the less someone can bind herself tightly to anyone. It’s called “the scotch-tape effect.” You can’t use a piece of scotch tape many times before it stops being sticky.

Two is worse than one which is worse than none, but it should be better than three or five or eight. But it isn’t, until the number gets all the way to ten, and then it’s not much better if at all.

Wolfinger explains the confusing finding this way. It’s probably the effect of “over-emphasized comparisons.” That’s his best guess, he says. “In most cases, a woman’s two premarital sex partners include her future husband and one other man.” The problem here is that the

second sex partner is first-hand proof of a sexual alternative to one’s husband. These sexual experiences convince women that sex outside of wedlock is indeed a possibility. The man involved was likely to have become a partner in the course of a serious relationship — women inclined to hook up will have had more than two premarital partners — thereby emphasizing the seriousness of the alternative.

For women who have many partners, “each one represents a smaller part of a woman’s sexual and romantic biography. Having two partners may lead to uncertainty, but having a few more apparently leads to greater clarity about the right man to marry.”

The Moral of the Story

So what’s the lesson here? A simple one. The first sin stains, cripples, twists, and we can’t control what happens.

So what’s the lesson here? A simple one. The first sin stains, cripples, twists, and we can’t control what happens.

We think of sin as a walk: one step, then two, then three, etc. We think we can take a lot of steps before we get dangerously far away. We’re sure we can always scurry back to safety. Just say sorry and things are back the way they were before, with no harm done.

But sin’s more like stepping off a cliff. The first step’s a killer, as the old joke goes.

Our sins work might not do the harm we expect, but they harm us in ways we don’t see coming. As Wolfinger’s confusing finding shows. We’re not playing with fire, just lighting a few matches, that’s what we tell ourselves, when (like Wiley Coyote) we’re standing in the dark and lighting one in a shed full of fireworks.

You might think it okay to have had one sexual partner before you met your future husband or wife. You’re not promiscuous. Everyone makes mistakes. You thought it was going to work out and who cared if you jumped the gun? You’re not like those people with five or ten or more partners. One extra intimate relation won’t really hurt.

It does. Weirdly, in one way it hurts us worse than having more relations do. Sin doesn’t play fair, and that’s a reason not to do it, even once.

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