COMPOSITION AND SIZE OF SAMPLE: MARITAL STATUS
At the time they were interviewed, about two fifths of the control group had never married, half were married, and the remainder were separated, widowed, or divorced. The prison group and the sex offenders taken as a whole were similar to one another but quite different from the control group: only one fifth to one quarter were currently married, and slightly more than one third were separated, widowed, or divorced. This high latter figure reflects both a style of life and the consequence of imprisonment. Of the various sex-offender groups, not one can match the control group in marital stability: the percentage separated, divorced, or widowed ranges from 17 to 60 per cent. In terms of currently married, only the incest offenders (all of whom by definition must have married) equal or surpass the control group; most other sex-offender groups had but a sixth to one third of their members married at the time of interview.
Marital status is partly related to age; note that our youngest groups —the peepers and the aggressors vs. minors—have the highest proportions of never-married individuals except for the homosexual offenders. Among the latter, the homosexual offenders vs. minors and vs. adults, two thirds and three quarters of their members, respectively, never married. However, while marital status is obviously influenced strongly by one’s age and degree of heterosexuality, we shall subsequently see that there are other important operant factors.
In a study of sexual behavior that includes persons confined in institutions, one must take such social isolation into account. Consequently, to put it simply, we took all the men who had ever been married, omitted prison time, and calculated the percentage of years since puberty that a man was a bachelor, a husband, and an ex-husband. The variation, as one can see from Table 6, is considerable. Again, some of this variation is based upon age—note that the youthful peepers have the largest proportion of their adult nonprison years spent as bachelors or divorced, and next to the smallest proportion spent as married men. With this sort of demographic information, proper allowance can be made for the amount of time spent behind bars.
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