In Sweden, for instance, the number of marriages has decreased by almost 40 percent in the last two decades.

Take Sweden as an example. Experts there estimate that 99 percent of a current group of newlyweds lived together before getting married. If unmarried cohabitation results in more secure marriages, then you would expect the divorce rate in that country to be dropping. Yet, statistics show that in the 25 years between 1958 and 1983, while the annual number of marriages decreased from 50,785 to 36,210, the number of divorces increased from 8,657 to 20,618.