Americans love to get married so much that more than 9 million U.S. residents—or 5.3 percent of the married population—have been married at least three times, Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post.
State-level data shows where residents are most likely to get married at least three times, and several states with large rural populations lead the way.
Arkansas is No. 1 in serial marriage, with 10.8 percent of married residents having been married at least three times, Ingraham writes. Oklahoma is second at 9.7 percent, followed by: Idaho, 8.7 percent; Alabama, 8.6 percent; and Nevada and Tennessee, 8.5 percent.
In Kentucky, where critics of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis—who has refused to issue marriage licenses because of her religious beliefs against same-sex marriage—have taken her to task for being married four times, 7.9 percent of state residents have been married at least three times. According to the newspaper, that’s roughly one in 12.
“By contrast, states in the northeast and upper Midwest have the lowest rates of serial marriage,” Ingraham writes. “New Jersey has the absolute lowest rate, with only 1.9 percent of ever-married residents having been married three times or more.”
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The Rural Blog is a digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, from the IRJCI, based at the University of Kentucky. The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues is an extension program for rural journalists and news outlets. It takes no positions on issues and advocates only for strong news coverage, responsible commentary and things that make them possible, such as open-government laws. For more information see www.RuralJournalism.org.