A study to be published in the May 2013 edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research will highlight the likelihood of heavy drinking leading to divorce. The study will detail the probability of a married couple’s chances of divorcing in relation to whether the wife, husband or both are heavy drinkers.
The study, conducted by Fartein Torvik and Ellinor Major, both of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, used a research sample of nearly 20,000 couples married between the years of 1984 and 1986. The couples were given questions regarding their alcohol consumption behaviors as well as questions detailing their mental distress at the beginning of the study. The couples were then checked up on for the next 15 years.
The study concluded that when both spouses drank heavily, divorce rates were moderate. However, if one spouse’s drinking habits overwhelmed the other’s, divorce rates increased significantly. For example, if the wife were the heavy drinker, the couple was three times likely to divorce as opposed to both spouses drinking evenly. The reasoning for this, according to Major, was that alcoholic women tend to be less tolerated by society.
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