[daveFNbuck]

Divorce rate is actually calculated by the number of divorces each year divided by the number of marriages each year. So if married couples flipped a coin each year to decide whether to get divorced, we'd have a similar divorce rate but almost no one would stay married for life.

On the other hand, if 90% of married couples stayed married for life but the remaining 10% got married and divorced 10 times each, we'd also have about a 53% divorce rate.

So the 53% number could support almost everyone getting divorces or almost everyone staying with their first marriage for life. It's a bit hard to measure this statistic, but every source I found says that a majority of Americans who get married never divorce.

Even if it were only 47%, that's still a really high success rate. We're talking about people in their 20s and 30s making a commitment that lasts until they're 80 or so. That doesn't support the idea that our society no longer has long-term commitments.