I have 50 people take my survey, which I realize, is not a large amount, especially considering as one of them was me, and one of them was my husband. So I'll delete him, outside of percentages, and, for all intents and purposes, 49 people took my survey.
The first question was "At what age were you married to your current spouse?"
6% = 16-19
68% = 20-24
20% = 24-29
6% = 30+
Interesting other tidbits about age variations? Those who dated and were engaged for the longest amount of time were in the 20-24 category.
My second question: "What was your highest level of education at the time of your marriage?"
70% = Some College
26% = College Graduate
2% = High School
2% = "Other." (Even I'm not too sure what that means...)
Third question: "Where did you attend school?"
Let's be honest. I was looking for age at time of marriage, and specific school enrollments, but found some other fun information.
33% of BYU participants met in their Single's Ward.
30% of BYUI participants met at school.
37% of those who went to school out of state met through a Mutual Friend, while 62% met through either a Single's Ward, or another Church function.
My fourth and fifth questions were about activity in the church of both participant and their spouse, at the time of their marriage. 96% were active at the time of their marriage, which made those two questions slightly inconclusive, for me.
Likewise with question number 6: "Where were you married?"
94% = LDS Temple
6% = Other Venue
(Those Mormons. Predictable.)
Question Seven: "How did you meet your current spouse?"
26% = LDS Single's Ward
16% = Church - Other
20% = School
8% = Online Dating
20% = Mutual Friend / Blind Date
2% = Work
8% = Other
Who'd have guessed that people actually do get married through their Single's Wards!?
Eight: "How long did you date your spouse before you were engaged?"
Longest Response: 72 months
Shortest Response: 3 weeks
Mean: 8.8 months
Median: 5 months
Mode: 4 months
Nine: "How long were you engaged to your spouse before you were married?"
Longest Response: 18 months
Shortest Response: 3 weeks
Mean: 4.65 months
Median: 2 months
Mode: 3 months
Question ten was significantly more complicated. Again, I was looking for trends. I labeled out several different events that happen in your average relationship:
Held Hands, First Kiss, First Sexual Encounter, First Date, Sexual Intercourse, "Making Out", Became "Official" (Boyfriend and Girlfriend), and Marriage.
Then I asked people to rate in which order those events happened in their relationship:
On Average, things generally happen in the following order:
First Date
Held Hands
First Kiss followed closely by
Became "Official"
"Making Out"
Marriage followed closely by
First Sexual Encounter
Sexual Intercourse
When I say that things "follow closely," I don't mean in time, like, "I got married, and within an hour, I had my first sexual encounter." I don't mean that. This data means that,
About 52% (ish - I'm looking at a graph) of the time, after making out, the next step in a relationship, for people, is getting married. About 48% of the time, after making out, the next step in a relationship, for people, is having your first sexual experience.
34% of individuals in my study stated they had a sexual experience with their spouse before marriage. The greatest predictor of having a sexual experience prior to marriage? I'm not sure I can figure that out, cause when I try to punch numbers, it looks like the highest predictor is actually Becoming "Official." So... ???
Of those 34%, 88% were still married in an LDS Temple. 5% of those with sexual encounters were with non-members - so they wouldn't have gotten married in the temple in the first place, if that makes sense.
Obviously, with a lot of data, there are many more conclusions and interesting statistics to be found.
If you're interested in getting an answer to a specific question, please feel free to comment, and I will do my best to get the data to you! (For example, "I attended BYU. What percentage of BYU students get married after 24?") (40%).
Till my next crazy graveyard shift of curiosity.
