Thread by @opinion

It’s wedding season!

Everything from a surge in engagement ring sales to booked-up venue rentals indicate we’re headed for a major marriage boom trib.al/S9RmA5J

The boom isn’t all due to pent-up demand.

Previous marriage booms suggest that human emotions, particularly those associated with collective traumas, play a big role in nudging people to the altar — and determining whether they remain married or split up trib.al/S9RmA5J

If you look at marriage booms and busts over the long run, a few trends stand out.

Data scientist Randal Olson compiled the data to show the effects of major events like world wars and economic crashes on U.S. marriage and divorce rates trib.al/S9RmA5J

Economic distress puts a halt to tying the knot: The Great Depression, for example, led to a 20% decline in marriage rates from 1929 to 1933.

The drop was a direct consequence of economic hardship, with the biggest declines coming in areas hit hardest trib.al/S9RmA5J

Yet marriages consummated during economic downturns actually proved longer-lasting than unions in periods of relative prosperity — possibly because of the stronger bonds forged by enduring tumultuous times together trib.al/S9RmA5J

If economic traumas depress marriage rates, other types of society-wide shocks goose them far more dramatically than the simple return of prosperity.

Wars, for example, almost always spark significant increases in union trib.al/S9RmA5J

🇫🇷Take France: Prior to the end of WWI, the number of newlyweds each year had dropped to about four for every thousand people.

Once peace returned, that number skyrocketed to 32 — a rise of 800% trib.al/S9RmA5J

Postwar marriage booms are often accompanied by a dramatic increase in divorces.

The only big divorce spike in the U.S. in the past 150 years took place at the end of WWII, when a number of marriages forged as lovers prepared to leave for war unraveled trib.al/S9RmA5J

When a collective trauma hits a society, it forces people to reevaluate their priorities and their partners.

Some individuals tie the knot; others get divorced; others do both, repeatedly trib.al/S9RmA5J

While military conflicts fuel these changes, natural disasters can, too. Increases in marriages (and divorces) have been found after:

➡️The 1906 San Francisco earthquake
➡️Earthquakes in China
➡️Hurricane Hugo in Florida trib.al/S9RmA5J

Strangely, disasters created by fellow humans — terrorist attacks like 9/11, for example — actually depresses divorce rates in areas directly affected by the calamity.

By contrast, natural disasters seem to fuel both divorce and marriages trib.al/S9RmA5J

The Covid-19 pandemic may well have lasting impacts on the marital status of many Americans.

It may speed some divorces, yes. But that's countered by the huge swell of weddings across the country that we're beginning to see trib.al/S9RmA5J

💍Will these marriages last? One study on weddings is worth considering:

The money couples spent on rings and the ceremony was inversely related to the long-term viability of the marriage. The more ostentatious the wedding, the less likely it would endure trib.al/S9RmA5J

If you’re invited to a post-pandemic wedding, then, don’t worry if it’s a simple, understated, inexpensive affair.

These are the couples whose unions are most likely stand the test of time, no matter what disasters await us in the coming years trib.al/S9RmA5J