Nearly three-fourths of brides (73.6%) and a slightly lower proportion of grooms (73.0%) who married in 1997 were marrying for the first time (Table MD5). Almost one-fourth of both brides and grooms were divorced at the time of marriage in 1997 (24.1% and 24.6% of brides and grooms, respectively). The remaining brides and grooms were widowed at the time of this marriage (2.3% of both brides and grooms). These relative percentages have changed very little over the past 10 years. Table MD6 presents the marital status of the bride at the time of marriage in 1997 distributed by similar data for grooms.

TABLE MD5. NUMBER OF MARRIAGES BY PREVIOUS MARITAL STATUS NEW JERSEY, 1988-1997
YEAR	NUMBER OF MARRIAGES	BRIDES			GROOMS
		PERCENT NEVER MARRIED	PERCENT WIDOWED	PERCENT DIVORCED	PERCENT NEVER MARRIED	PERCENT WIDOWED	PERCENT DIVORCED
1988	61,063	74.6	2.5	22.9	73.0	2.6	24.4
1989	60,076	74.9	4.9	20.2	73.6	5.0	21.3
1990	58,747	74.9	2.4	22.8	73.7	2.4	23.9
1991	55,832	75.3	2.5	22.3	74.2	2.6	23.2
1992	55,321	74.3	2.5	23.3	73.5	2.5	24.0
1993	53,505	74.0	2.4	23.6	73.2	2.4	24.4
1994	52,797	74.0	2.3	23.7	73.2	2.4	24.4
1995	52,208	74.3	2.4	23.3	73.4	2.3	24.3
1996	51,811	74.3	2.3	23.5	73.2	2.4	24.5
1997	55,467	73.6	2.3	24.1	73.0	2.3	24.6

TABLE MD6. MARRIAGES BY PREVIOUS MARITAL STATUS OF BRIDE AND GROOM NEW JERSEY, 1997
PREVIOUS MARITAL STATUS OF BRIDE	TOTAL	PREVIOUS MARITAL STATUS OF GROOM
		NEVER MARRIED	WIDOWED	DIVORCED
NEVER MARRIED	40,837	34,324	265	6,248
WIDOWED	1,273	329	435	509
DIVORCED	13,356	5,859	585	6,912
NOT STATED	1	1	0	0
TOTAL	55,467	40,513	1,285	13,669

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