‘Porn not great for marriages’

MARRIED couples who watch pornography almost double their risk of divorce.

While it was once seen as the preserve of husbands, it now seems that wives are almost as keen on watching it as men, the research found.

But viewing adult films and images comes at a price, with women who started looking at porn while married three times more likely to want a divorce.

In the latest research, sociologists from the University of Oklahoma interviewed thousands of married adults regularly over several years. They found porn negatively affected those in a happy marriage, the newlyweds or those from a non-religious home.

But there was no increase in the probability of divorce among weekly church-goers because the social stigma of divorce was greater, showing “religion has a protective effect on marriage, even in the face of pornography use”.

Assistant professor Dr Samuel Perry said: “Beginning pornography use between survey waves nearly doubled one’s likelihood of being divorced by the next survey period, from 6 percent to 11 percent, and nearly tripled it for women, from 6 percent to 16 percent.

“Our results suggest that viewing pornography, under certain social conditions, may have negative effects on marital stability.”

But pornography had no effect on unhappier marriages, the study showed.