The omission of men in the study could lead one to believe that the study is intended to place the blame for marital failures on women and women’s habits/values. ??
Which would be totally typical, wouldn’t it?
The paper says this about the study of men:
“To be sure, this research is limited by the lack of information pertaining to the relationship histories of men. Only information pertaining to the premarital relationships of women is available in the NSFG (note, however, that Round 6 of the NSFG, conducted in 2002, will contain information about men). Thus, the results cannot be extrapolated to the premarital relationships of men, and there is no immediate basis for expecting the effects of such relationships to be either similar to or different from those of women. The current results also cannot be used to ascertain the joint effects of the premarital relationships of both men and women (e.g., the likelihood of marital disruption if both partners had cohabited with someone else prior to marriage). Again, this remains an issue for subsequent research to address in full. These results are also limited to marriages formed prior to 1995 and marriages of relatively short duration. As changes in premarital sex and cohabitation continue to occur, it would prove useful to consider the effects of these variables on marital stability.”
They claimed to not have the data at the time they did the study.