1/2 of All Marriages End in Divorce

An interesting fact:

"This statistic (see title) is the ace in the hole when it comes to showing the moral decay of our times...but statistically speaking, it's useless. This figure is derived by taking the number of marriages per year and comparing it to the number of divorces per year. And since there are nearly half as many divorces as marriages, people would conclude that half of all marriages end in divorce. This statistic would be correct if everyone married only once and divorced only once, but thanks to the Larry Kings and Elizabeth Taylors of the world, things don't add up. The actual number of marriages that end in divorce is closer to 1 in 4, or 25 percent."
~Stupid History by Leland Gregory, pg 16