Fewer people apply for marriage licenses

CINCINNATI (AP) — Some Ohio counties are reporting the lowest number of marriage-license applications in decades as more people apparently choose to live together rather than tie the knot.

In Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, about 4,500 couples applied for marriage licenses last year, the fewest since 1957.

Hamilton County has seen a steady decline in applications for marriage licenses since 1982, when the number peaked at 8,129.

Neighboring Butler County received about 2,000 applications last year, the fewest since 1970. Though booming Warren County has doubled its population since 1990, the number of applications has stayed flat at about 1,100.

A report last month by the National Marriage Project found the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women age 15 and older dropped by nearly 50 percent from 1970 to 2007.

The report said the number of couples that just live together increased from 439,000 in 1960 to about 6.8 million today.

There’s been an increase in lifelong singles, more people marrying later in life and unmarried cohabitation, the report found. There’s also been a small decrease in the tendency of divorced people to remarry.

The country is beginning to see a marriage gap that breaks down along socioeconomic and religious lines, said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

College-educated people and religious individuals are more likely to get married, while blue collar couples and those who aren’t religious are less likely.