I get it, the fear of being betrayed and bamboozled out of your belongings make a lot of people fearful of marriage...but think of it another way. While reports claim that 50% of marriages fail (fail meaning ends in divorce, and there are reports to refute this claim indicating it's actually closer to 35 to 40% or less)...it means that more than half the people who choose to do it...get it right. In a world where the average job lasts around 5 years, people get new cars and new houses every few years, etc., people manage to stay together "until death". In a world with as much upheaval and turmoil, I'm kind of stoked that people still go the distance. Peace.
The true divorce rate might be 30-40%, but you should also take into consideration of the many parents who do not get divorce, because of circumstance, such as kids or economical issues. My parents had a bad relationship for 8 years before they finally divorced. This is anecdotal so you can choose to ignore it, but on average I notice 1 out of 10 people have bad relationship parents, and another 2 out of 10 that are together, still hang out, but lack any love for one another. Of course, vice versa holds true as well since not all divorce are bad either, so 50% of marriage sucks sounds closer to reality than 30-40%.
I was only talking about the divorce vs. marriage until death. There are a lot of extenuating circumstances like you pointed out. Two people may be madly in love, but one of them suffers from a crippling addiction...so the other partner sees no way out other than divorce. I still think that if you can say 50% of marriages suck, and 40% of those end in divorce...that still means half of all marriages are relatively happy and healthy (with a 10 percent grouping for those who stay in lousy marriages for the kids, property, wealth, etc.). I can live with those numbers. I know if you gave 50/50 odds on either being alone my entire life, or having the love of my life the whole time...I'd take those odds any day. Beats the odds in the lottery...lol.
Guys... If you have assets, a business, property, stocks, bonds, some kind of inheritance
DO NOT GET MARRIED...
UNLESS she's Super old fashioned, super rich or from the 3rd world
You're risking your family legacy on some Facebook generation sorority dorm slut with nudes your kids will find one day
about half of my relatives are divorced, 5 because the other cheated and they only got about 500 a month for 5 years to keep them afloat as they found new homes
Or... everyone can act like responsible adults instead of assholes. Relationships work best when there's plenty of communication and both people put the effort into the marriage.