not to sound too Marxist, but...
social class plays a -big- role in divorce. on the whole, the fewer resources, lower social standing, the higher the divorce rate, overall. there are exceptions...I seem to recall reading that higher status, well-educated couples that marry later in which the woman makes about as much as the husband also have a high divorce rate...but...yeah.
its interesting to me, having grown up Presbyterian, that they're on the lower end of the divorce rate. probably part resources, education level, and also...well, my parents were/are both Calvinist, and they were+are hardcore dedicated to the idea of staying married, barring crazy stuff, because of a commitment to society and the community, on top of their commitment to each other. maybe that helps?
Catholics...of course...enforce their concept of the indissolubility of marriage more forcefully than most other denominations. still happens. id be interested to see the breakdown in their divorce stats. a lot of us catholics are immigrants or children of immigrants, and they have lower social standing and fewer resources, but they tend to have stronger extended families and community ties, both of which can help keep marriages (and families) intact. I think the Catholic way of "doing" Christianity can help, too...
....in the 19th century, Emile Durkheim did a study on suicide. He was a sociologist, so we was out to put suicide into a social context. Catholics, predictably, had a lower suicide rate than the Protestants in his sample, but...so did the Jewish people, and their faith isn't hardcore anti-suicide, like Catholicism. Durkheim's theory was that people in his Catholic sample were better integrated into society, so they didn't kill themselves as often as the Protestants ("anomic suicide," where "anomie" is interpreted as a state of "normless-ness," caused at the group level by social decay and disintegration...). This was true also of the Jewish people in his sample...they had stronger family and community bonds, so they killed themselves at a lower rate than the Protestants, even though suicide wasn't a "mortal sin" or what have you in Judaism.
Sorry to ramble, LOL. Interesting post.