Teachman 2003 — Premarital sex, premarital cohabitation, and the risk of subsequent marital dissolution

What the study found

Drawing on nationally representative U.S. survey data, Teachman examined whether a woman's premarital sexual and cohabitation history predicted later marital breakup. He found that premarital sex or cohabitation limited to the man a woman eventually married carried no elevated risk of divorce, whereas women who had more than one intimate premarital partner faced a higher risk of marital dissolution. ^[1]

premarital sex or premarital cohabitation that is limited to a woman's husband is not associated with an elevated risk of marital disruption

^[1]

Why it matters here

In manosphere discussion, the number of a woman's prior sexual partners — her "body count" — is often treated as a direct predictor of whether a marriage will last. Teachman's results complicate that framing: history confined to the future husband showed no elevated dissolution risk, and the higher risk appeared specifically among women with multiple premarital relationships. Because the findings are correlational, they cannot establish that partner history causes divorce, and the analysis covers women rather than men. See the check on whether a partner's "body count" matters for how this evidence is weighed.