Let the Numbers Speak

What we call love. Love with a capital L—the kind we’re convinced will last forever. We walk down the aisle, certain our bond is unbreakable. Yet, on closer inspection, it often isn’t. There are countless reasons—known or unknown—that drive us to take life’s biggest leap, and just as many that pull us apart from a bond once thought invincible. Here, backed by data and statistics, are some of the quirkiest figures and surprises of married life…

• 68.5 times a year. Of what? Sex. Worldwide, the average married couple has sex just over once a week.
• Around 300 weddings take place every day in Las Vegas—yet 75% of marriages that began as affairs end in divorce, according to the study “Sexual Detours: Infidelity and Intimacy at the Crossroad.”

Posthumous marriage is legal in France. No joke. It began in World War I, when fiancées who’d lost their prospective husbands in combat petitioned to wed them posthumously.
Some people marry themselves; others choose animals. In 2007, in India, 33-year-old P. Selvakumar married his dog to break what he believed was a curse.
Loyalty can be fleeting: in 2011, after 77 years together (he was 99, she three years younger), an elderly couple divorced over a betrayal that had happened back in 1940.
And then there are those who tie the knot with objects. In 2007, Erika La Tour Eiffel, 37, married…the Eiffel Tower. In 1979, a Swedish woman wed the Berlin Wall—only to see it fall ten years later.

Peak marital happiness? Lawyers at the U.K. firm Slater & Gordon say it comes in the third year—although in the U.S., about 100 divorces are finalized every hour.

Laws that will make your jaw drop: in Iran, since 2013, men can legally marry their adopted daughters. In Ancient Rome, Emperor Nero wed one of his freedmen. The tradition of exchanging wedding rings dates back to ancient Egypt. And in the U.S., interracial marriage was banned from 1776 until 1967—and between 1907 and 1922, American women lost their citizenship if they married a foreigner.

Yet it seems those who spend less last longer. An Emory University study finds that lavish weddings often foreshadow marital trouble. In South Korea, adultery was a criminal offense punishable by prison until 2015. While roughly 69% of Ethiopian marriages involve abduction, in India, 74% of young people enter arranged marriages, according to Ipsos.

Ever heard of it? It’s the fear of commitment… you do the math. So how do you make it last? Sociologist Nick Wolfinger of the University of Utah recommends marrying between ages 28 and 32. In Vietnam, you even need a mental health certificate to wed.

UNICEF reports that 15 million girls marry as minors each year. In the U.S., the share of 18- to 29-year-olds who are married has fallen from 59% in 1960 to just 20% today. Stress? Perhaps—a UK survey found that most couples do nothing on their wedding night. Finally, here’s a Guinness World Record: Octavio Guillen and Ariana Martinez were engaged for 67 years. Maybe that’s the true elixir of lasting love.