Marriage longevity (#152; Topic D)

On June 7, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), during a Senate debate, offered the following (as reported in Washington Post, 6/8/06): "[M]y wife and I have been married 47 years. We have 20 kids and grandkids. I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce ...." The senator certainly has our congratulations. As to being "proud," suggesting that marrying for 47 years is rare -- it may be so in USA, it is commonplace among people of Chinese ancestry. Indeed, my wife and I have been married for 49 years; there is no divorce in our family either, though our sample size is, admittedly, much smaller, since we have but 4 kids and grandkids. Looking around, in the retirement community in which we live, with over 100 persons with Chinese ancestry, at least a dozen couples have been married longer than we. While there are about that number of persons with a widowhood or widowerhood status, I know of no one who is divorced. (There was a couple who wished to separate; the wife first moved to a continuous-care retirement facility; the husband followed suit and moved to that same facility, but in a separate unit altogether.) Among local alumni graduating from the same university in Shanghai, of which I am one, all couples have been married longer than we. A few have widowhood status; one has a second wife after his first one passed away -- but no divorces.