President Kimball, sex, and divorce


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(I'm not seeking advice for me personally, moderators, so feel free to move this thread if you feel it belongs somewhere else. As it is an issue specific to marriage/divorce, I thought this was a good place to put this question.)

Many of us have seen the following quote from President Kimball:

if you study the divorces, as we have had to do in these past years, you will find there are one, two, three, four reasons. Generally sex is the first. They did not get along sexually. They may not say that in court. They may not even tell that to their attorneys, but that is the reason. (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982, p. 312.)

As a scientist, I look at this assertion and say, "this needs some supporting data to back it up," and Pres. Kimball alludes to the existence of such data. My question is -- does anyone know if the data supporting this assertion was ever published/made available to the public? Is it based on data the church collected or was it based on data the church found publicly available?

I think my interest in this question is to further explore how, "they did not get along sexually." Can you break these causes into different categories? As examples: mismatched libido, coercive/abusive, unhealthy attitudes, or whatever the data might show.

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Back in the day, many General Authorities did not focus much on citing statistics. It is quite likely he believed this from his own observations, and that of bishops who noted the same problems. Remember, this is the apostle who in an otherwise brilliant book on Forgiveness, included a totally off the cuff story about David W. Patten seeing an odd Sasquatch-like creature and thinking it was Cain. It is very likely he used similar "statistics" or stories to make such claims regarding the key problems with marriage.

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