Premarital sex only with the future husband carries no elevated divorce risk

The number

In nationally representative U.S. survey data, a woman whose premarital sex was limited to the man she married is at no elevated risk of divorce. ^[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]

What it does and doesn't establish

This is a null result — and a narrow but important one. Because premarital sex confined to the eventual husband raises no risk, sex itself cannot be the thing "damaging" a woman's ability to pair-bond. What is linked to higher divorce risk is having multiple premarital relationships — the number of relationships, not the sex. And the shape is not the straight "more partners, more divorce" line the "body count" frame assumes:

Women with 3-9 partners were less likely to divorce than women with 2 partners.

^[2]

None of this licenses "body count" as a reliable red flag: the figure does not measure a spent capacity to bond, and a screen that runs backwards from two to nine partners is not measuring what the theory claims. Does a woman's "body count" predict relationship failure?