Census: 70 percent have been married

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Fifty-five percent of U.S. residents over 15 have been married once and 15 percent twice or more, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday.

The figures derive from the study "Number, Timing and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 2009," the agency said.

Most currently married couples (55 percent) had been wed for at least 15 years, while 35 percent had reached their 25th anniversary. Six percent had marked their 50th. These percentages had risen slightly since a 1996 survey, a sign of plateauing divorce rates and higher life expectancy.

For 72 percent of couples, both spouses were in their first marriage, while 6 percent included a wife in her second marriage, 8 percent a husband in his second and 8 percent both spouses in their second marriage.

Among other findings, first marriages that ended in divorce lasted a median of eight years, and half the people who remarried after divorce did so within about four years.

A majority of women had married by age 25, and most men by 30.

Among people 70 and over, 23 percent of men and 51 percent of women had been widowed, and most had not remarried.