Richard Nixon was president and Iran was still friendly with the United States when Al and Tipper walked down the aisle of the Washington National Cathedral in 1970.

If the Gores could opt to dissolve their marriage after so much time together, is any marriage safe?

It turns out that statistically speaking, the Gore breakup is quite an anomaly. Less than half a percent of couples with 40 or more years of marriage under their belts obtained a divorce in 2008, according to Census Bureau data reported by the Pew Research Center. Comparatively, the divorce rate during the same time span for marriages of 25-plus years rises to about 1 percent.

"Divorce of long-term marriage is really rare," said Richard B. Miller, director of BYU's School of Family Life. "In fact, it's a linear decline — the more years you're married and the older you get, the less likely you are to get divorced. So this kind of thing is really rare. My sense is, by about 40 years (of marriage), people have pretty much decided, 'We've stayed together this long; we might as well hunker down and go to the end.' "

Religious affiliation decreases the likelihood of any marriage ending in divorce, a trend that only grows stronger the longer a marriage endures. Statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002 reveal that American women with any religious affiliation are 8 percent less likely to be divorced five years after marriage than their counterparts with no affiliation; by 15 years after marriage, that figure grows to a 15 percent disparity.

"Most religions are going to encourage commitment," Miller said. "Sticking things out, that kind of thing. … I've known a number of couples that were older that said, 'Our marriage isn't great, but we look forward to it getting better in the next life.' "

Although the Gores are both affiliated with Protestant churches, their decision to divorce could be interpreted as evidence that their union was founded on a political and not a religious paradigm.

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According to USA Today, psychiatrist Dennis Lin of the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan says that the split may make sense, especially in the 10 years since Gore's presidential bid. "They're no longer invested in a singular life like they were before," he said to USA Today.

The Gores' marriage is often compared with that of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who "are invested in a singular life together," Lin said. "They are very much a couple. They have a political life together and there's a stronger emotional bond. The Gores may once have had a strong emotional bond, but they have clearly grown apart.

"Their relationship was probably having troubles over time, and they were less and less invested in each other and less invested in making this relationship work. They have their separate lives and they were both relatively happy being without the other person."

e-mail: jaskar@desnews.com

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