MARRIAGE: NUMBER OF MARRIAGES
Calculation of the percentage of men who had married only once provides some highly interesting figures. The first eight ranks are occupied by persons whose offenses were directed at minors or adults; in the first five ranks are those whose sexual objects were adults only (or chiefly adults as in the case of peepers and exhibitionists). All aggressors and all offenders vs. children fall in the lower half of the rank-order, i.e., were more prone to experience separation or divorce followed by remarriage.
The groups with the highest proportion of men who were married only once owe this distinction to quite diverse factors. In the case of the control group, which is in first place with 81 per cent, it seems primarily a matter of conformance to the mores plus considerable deliberation in selecting a wife. The second-place homosexual offenders vs. adults probably owe their position to their homosexual component: one marriage was enough, and if it failed, they had no strong incentive to try again. For the third-place peepers, on the other hand, it is presumably a matter chiefly of their youth—they simply have not had time enough for many of them to have contracted more than one marriage.
A study of brief unsuccessful marriages reveals some wide inter-group differences. Using as the criterion marriages that lasted two years or less and ended in separation or divorce, one sees that the aggressors, homosexual offenders, peepers, and prison-group males have more such marriages than the control group and the incest offenders. This is all the more striking when one realizes that the peepers, aggressors vs. minors, and prison group are our three youngest groups, whereas the incest offenders vs. adults and minors are our oldest and therefore had more time for multiple marriages and divorces. Many diverse influences are here operative. For example, a very large (41 per cent = second in rank) proportion of the ever-married homosexual offenders vs. adults had one brief marriage ending in separation or divorce, yet very few (4 per cent) had two. Again this can be explained by their homosexuality which accounts not only for the brevity and termination of their first marriages but accounts for their lack of desire to remarry. The numerous brief marriages of the prison group and the aggressors are in large part due to their early involvement in crime with consequent imprisonment and disruption of marriage.
*305\161\2*
