Saying 'I do, I do, I do,' more than 9 million Americans have been married at least three times

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 religious beliefs—have taken her to task for being married four times, 7.9 percent of state residents have been married at least three times.

"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. I've put the numbers for all the states in a table below." (Post map)