Research shows the longer you date, the happier your wedding. Until you’re Shirley Temple.

Actress, ambassador, autobiographer: Shirley Temple, whom passed away at the age of 85, didn’t waste a lot of time in her career—or in her love life yesterday. She got engaged to her very very very very first spouse, Army Air Corps sergeant John Agar, before she switched 17, so when the wedding finished four years later on, she wasted almost no time finding an upgraded: She came across 30-year-old Charles Alden Ebony, an professional in the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, significantly less than 2 months after divorcing Agar. They got involved 12 times later—and stayed together for the following 55 years.

Temple’s life had been exemplary in several ways—and enjoying an extended and marriage that is happy a brief courtship is certainly one of them. Although the literary works about this topic is restricted, research shows that for many people, the quantity of time spent getting to understand your lover is definitely correlated with the potency of your wedding.

More dating, happier marriage

A team of researchers from Kansas State University’s department of Home Economics recruited 51 middle-aged married women and split them into four groups: those had dated for less than five months; those who had spent six to 11 months getting to know their future husband; those who had dated for one to two years; and those who had dated for over two years for a 1985 paper in the journal Family Relations. Read more