Reno among most likely places to say vamoose to marriage vows

Reno is in fourth place nationally among cities that are “most doomed for divorce,” according to Men’s Health magazine.

“I guess (in those states) the idea is not to make it too easy, or people will somehow lose their commitment for the marriage contract,” he said.

In Reno and Las Vegas, some businesses still depend on the divorce industry.

Reno Divorce and Document Services, for example, advertises the preparation of joint divorce petitions for $435 and “one-party complaints” for $660. The firm’s website has a list of weekly rental properties in both Reno and Las Vegas for those who want to establish the six weeks of residency required for a divorce action.

It’s unknown how much of Nevada’s divorce boom can be attributed to out-of-state litigants rather than locals. But decades of statistics show Nevada isn’t a good bet for long-term matrimony.

The safest city for vows in the Men’s Health survey was San Jose, Calif., followed by Columbia, S.C., and El Paso, Texas. Marriages in Riverside, Calif., and Providence, R.I., also were more likely to last than in other cities, the magazine reported.

Las Vegas came in second after first-place Cheyenne, Wyo. Billings, Mont., was third on the list of 100 cities ranked in order of their propensity to become splitsville.

To determine where “I do” is most doomed, the magazine considered the rate of failed marriages, the stringency of divorce laws, the percentage of the population who have split and the number of licensed marriage and family therapists.

In 2007, Nevada had 6.5 divorces per 1,000 population, as compared to the 5.4 rate in Wyoming and a 4-per-1,000 rate in Montana, according to the Division of Vital Statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics.

According to the Census Bureau, Nevada’s divorce rate has dropped steadily from 11.4 per 1,000 people in 1990, but it still leads the nation in failed marriages.

Over the years, academics have attributed the statistic to the state’s 24-hour lifestyle, transient population, service-industry jobs and the Silver State’s prevalence of unhealthy behaviors, such as drinking.

Then, there’s tradition.

Nevada’s legalization of casino gambling in 1931 and the passage of liberal divorce laws, such as a three-month (later changed to a six-week) residency requirement created a divorce boom for Reno.

Journalist Ernie Pyle once wrote that “all the people you saw on the streets in Reno were obviously there to get divorces.”

In the 1930s, columnist Walter Winchell coined the term “Reno-vated” as a euphemism for divorce. In the 1961 movie “The Misfits,” Marilyn Monroe’s character gets divorced in Reno and then ponders throwing her wedding ring into the Truckee River.

“In books, movies and popular culture, a woman mentioning ‘Reno’ was a kind of code for divorce,” said Michael Green, an author and history professor at the College of Southern Nevada. “A man might go to Reno to gamble, but when a woman said she was heading there, for a lot of people that would mean divorce was her likely purpose.”

Green said other states’ divorce laws have gotten more lenient over the years, but there still are some places where couples have to live apart for a period of time before they can end their union or have to meet specific grounds for splitting up.

 “I guess (in those states) the idea is not to make it too easy, or people will somehow lose their commitment for the marriage contract,” he said.

In Reno and Las Vegas, some businesses still depend on the divorce industry.

Reno Divorce and Document Services, for example, advertises the preparation of joint divorce petitions for $435 and “one-party complaints” for $660. The firm’s website has a list of weekly rental properties in both Reno and Las Vegas for those who want to establish the six weeks of residency required for a divorce action.

It’s unknown how much of Nevada’s divorce boom can be attributed to out-of-state litigants rather than locals. But decades of statistics show Nevada isn’t a good bet for long-term matrimony.

The safest city for vows in the Men’s Health survey was San Jose, Calif., followed by Columbia, S.C., and El Paso, Texas. Marriages in Riverside, Calif., and Providence, R.I., also were more likely to last than in other cities, the magazine reported.