11/84Number of police officers and Secret Service agents at the wedding of Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti: 180
8/84Percentage of the sexual acts depicted or referred to on prime-time TV that are between married partners: 6
3/85Percentage of married women in the United States who say they have been raped by their husbands: 14
6/86Number of weddings performed each day in 1985 at Las Vegas’s Little Church of the West: 163
Percentage of West Germans who say this: 52
7/86Percentage of babies born to married American women in 1965 that were unwanted: 20.5
3/87Percentage of prostitutes in India who say their husband or a relative forced them into the profession: 33
6/87Public revenues generated by marriage license fees in New York City in 1985: $806,090
By divorce fees: $3,637,095
10/88Number of the 90,000 Illinois marriage-license applicants screened for AIDS this year who tested positive: 11
12/88Average number of years of marriage before an unfaithful British husband has his first affair: 8
2/88Percentage of married men and women who say they were worried about sex on their wedding night: 18
2/88Rate of separation among Swedish couples who married after first living together (in percent): 34
7/88Percentage of 13- to 15-year-old boys who say that it is acceptable for a man to rape his wife: 86
Who say that it is acceptable for a man to rape his date if he has spent “a lot of money” on her: 24
10/89Weight of the Bridgeport, Connecticut, woman who killed her husband in July by sitting on him, in pounds: 500
1/90Percentage change, since 1980, in the number of American families composed of a housewife, an employed husband, and 2 children: -21
2/90Average number of days a divorced middle-aged American woman spends sick in bed each year: 14
3/90Chances that an American woman is married, has children, and says she has a “successful career”: 2 in 5
4/90Percentage of two-income families whose income would drop below the poverty line if the wife did not work: 50
6/90Price of a wedding ceremony at the coin-operated, 24-hour Church of Elvis in Portland, Oregon: $1
6/91Average cost of an American wedding, expressed as a portion of the median annual income of a family of four: 2/5
8/91Year Brazil’s Supreme Court first ruled that it is illegal for a man to kill his adulterous wife to defend his honor: 1991
9/91Percentage of American women who say they have listened in on their husband’s phone calls: 28
10/92Percentage change, since 1970, in the number of interracial marriages in the United States: +223
12/92Ratio of American marriages between black men and white women to those between black women and white men: 2:1
4/93Ratio of the divorce rate in cities with a major-league baseball franchise to the rate in cities that are applying for one: 3:4
6/93Estimated total number of couples married in group ceremonies by Reverend Sun Myung Moon since 1960: 49,132
2/94Amount a California man won last year after suing his wife for feigning sexual attraction to him for 13 years: $242,000
5/94Percentage of Americans who say that women “sometimes deserve to be hit by their husbands or boyfriends”: 12
Percentage who say that men “sometimes deserve to be hit by their wives or girlfriends”: 29
6/94Age, in years, of a piece of wedding fruitcake on display at the Grover Cleveland Birthplace, in Caldwell, New Jersey: 106
8/94Number of guests who witnessed Justice Clarence Thomas perform Rush Limbaugh’s wedding ceremony last May: 10
8/94Price of holding a wedding at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, in Yorba Linda, California: $1,500
10/95Number of years a Utah man had been married before discovering last April that his wife was a man: 3.5
2/95Ratio of the number of Britons who blame Prince Charles for his failed marriage to the number blaming Diana: 5:1
4/95Number of the 29 divorced members of the House of Representatives who are Democrats: 21
4/95Percentage of Americans who say they would allow their spouse to have sex with a stranger in exchange for $1 million: 10
9/95Marriage proposals received by Timothy McVeigh since his arrest last April for the Oklahoma bombing: 4
7/96Number of missiles designed for the Pentagon by Jack Ryan, a designer of the first Barbie Doll: 2
Number of months Ryan was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor: 9
8/96Days in jail to which a Pennsylvania man was sentenced last March for repeatedly oinking at his ex-wife: 30
2/97Percentage of Americans who believe that Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife: 12
6/97Number of Latin American countries in which a rapist is exonerated if the victim accepts his marriage proposal: 14
Number of months one co-author spent married to the original Bozo the Clown: 18
1/99Percentage of the funds spent fighting Alaska’s gay-marriage initiative last year that came from the Mormon Church: 79
6/99Percentage of Alabamans who oppose removing the state’s constitutional ban on interracial marriage: 26
6/99Percentage of newlyweds who say they consummated their relationship on the first date: 17
8/99Chance that a New York Times article about Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign this year mentions her husband: 1 in 3
9/99Amount that Florida governor Jeb Bush’s wife spent on a 5-day shopping trip to Paris last June: $19,000
Amount she declared to U.S. Customs: $500
9/99Percentage of Americans who say Hillary Clinton’s campaign will be more successful if her husband doesn’t try to help: 69
10/00Number of novels by a current vice presidential candidate’s wife wherein a vice president dies in flagrante delicto: 1
2/00Years after 1993’s Baby Jessica custody ruling that both her birth parents and her adoptive parents filed for divorce: 6
6/00Number of Japanese couples who used Dolly the cloned sheep in their wedding photo before researchers ended the practice: 1
6/00Number of “marriage studies” majors learning “the art of getting and staying married ” last term at a Pennsylvania college: 8
6/00Amount Shell Oil paid last year to sponsor the wedding reception of the King of Buganda, Uganda: $3,000
2/01Chances that an Alabama voter voted against legalizing marriage between blacks and whites last November: 2 in 5
8/02Number of northern Nigerian states in which being divorced and pregnant is enough evidence for an adultery conviction: 12
7/03Number of years Neil Bush was married before asking his wife for a divorce via email last summer: 22
Percentage of unmarried, cohabiting U.S. couples that are: 41
11/04Days after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that Dick Cheney married, securing a draft deferment: 22
12/04Percentage of 30-year-old American men who were married, self-supporting fathers in 1960 and 2000, respectively: 65,31
5/04Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved: 3
5/04Median household income a pair of U.S. single mothers would have if they married each other: $40,568
6/04Estimated revenue lost by an Oregon county since it suspended granting heterosexuals marriage licenses last March: $2,000
9/04Percentage of pages in Hillary Clinton’s memoir that mention her husband, and vice versa, respectively: 45, 20
3/05Amount that the U.S. wedding industry would gain each year if gays wed at the same rate as straights: $17,000,000,000
Amount that U.S. divorce attorneys would gain if gays also divorced at the same rate: $1,900,000,000
4/05Percentage of born-again U.S. Christians who have been divorced: 35
Percentage of other Americans who have been: 35
4/05Chances that the divorce of a born-again Christian happened after he or she accepted Christ: 9 in 10
4/05Estimated number of young Christians in 1995 who had pledged to wait until marriage for sex: 2,500,000
Estimated percentage who waited: 12
3/06Percentage change in the amount of housework done by women after they marry for the first time: +17
Percentage change in the amount done by men: ‒33
5/07Percentage of Americans in February who said they would be unlikely to vote for a candidate who has been divorced twice: 26
Percentage who said they would be unlikely to vote for a 72-year-old: 58
Percentage who said they would be unlikely to vote for an African American or a smoker, respectively: 6, 21
9/07Average number of years by which the eight Democratic candidates are older than their spouses: 9
Average number of years by which the nine Republican candidates are: 3
Number of years that Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich are, respectively: 24, 23
11/08Number of scenes of or references to sex between a married couple shown during an average week of NBC programming: 1
2/08Number of states where a court has held that women must return engagement rings if the wedding doesn’t happen: 18
8/08Percentage of Americans who say that they or someone in their family has married in order to get health insurance: 7
9/08Projected amount that same-sex weddings will add to California’s economy during the next three years: $684,000,000
2/09Estimated total value in December 2007 of the family fortune of Thomas Friedman’s wife: $3,500,000,000
Percentage change in the value of that fortune since then: –97