Couples who meet online have fine marriages

Engaged couples who fear revealing that they met their partners on the Internet can now justify their relationships’ origins with data. A new survey of nearly 20,000 people who married between 2005 and 2012 finds that Cupid’s arrow flies as true for online daters as it does for partners who meet through more traditional venues. Regardless of how they met, couples report similar levels of satisfaction with their marriage, a team reports June 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The number of marriage breakups was also similar between the two groups.

Some unsurprising demographic trends emerged: People who met online tended to be older. Of the people who met offline, couples who met in places of worship reported more satisfaction with their marriage than did people who met in bars or clubs. The study, funded by the online dating website eHarmony, may diminish the stigma of online dating, which is still met with skepticism by many.