Anyone who thinks the number of guest at your wedding is one of the "7 biggest factors" of a successful marriage has either never been married, is unfamiliar wi

Anyone who thinks the number of guest at your wedding is one of the "7 biggest factors" of a successful marriage has either never been married, is unfamiliar with the different between causality and correlation, or both. This article is irritating in its language to the extreme: "What struck me about this study is that it basically laid out what makes for a stable marriage in the U.S. I’ve highlighted 7 of the biggest factors below." No you haven't. You cherry picked 7 metrics and mapped them against divorce rates. "Clearly, this shows us that having a large group of family and friends who support the marriage is critically important to long-term marital stability" No, it "clearly" doesn't show that at all. I could argue instead that it "clearly means" that most people are highly malleable to peer pressure, and don't want to look stupid/ashamed/embarrassed that they can't make their marriage work, so they stay married (Note, I don't think divorce is about an inability to make a marriage "work", I'm simply pointing out a reasonable reaction for married people to have). The "goes to church" factor is also very open to interpretation. Are people with strong united faith more likely to stay together? That is probable. Equally likely are that many faiths frown upon or outright forbid the concept of divorce. As my grandmother told me years ago, "Catholics, Billy, do not get divorced." I appreciate studies that try to collect this information, but these aren't direct factors. They are, at best, secondary metrics that help reveal information about the traits and values of the people getting married. This still valuable, you just need to frame it in the right light. Married after dating for a month? Hmmm, Sounds like people who aren't thinking things through and considering the long term consequences of their actions. Lots of family at a wedding? The bride/groom is probably someone who has lots of experience dealing with people they love, but who can be difficult, and where leaving isn't really an option because they are family. Sounds like a good trait to help resolve the issues that will come up in a marriage. People who aren't superficial about money or looks? Yeah, those are mature people with reasonable expectations in life. Bet they are going to do much better than someone who wants a trophy wife or a gold digger. Really, this is all just absurd to paint these as "factors" in your marriage.