What Percent of American Women are Even Marriageable?

This is an excerpt from "The Book of Numbers: Analyzing the ROI on the Pursuit of Women."  This is merely one of many different calculations and estimations in the book, all designed to help the average man understand exactly what his mathematical chances are of being successful in the dating/marriage market.  I decided to publish this excerpt of the book because I find the statistics very insightful and telling, if not damning of just what a small percent of the female population is marriage-worthy.  And though you may not buy the book, I was still compelled to share these findings as it will ease the minds of all men that not, it's not you.  It really is that bad out there.

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The “Deal Breaker Method” attempts to measure (based on surveys, polling, and other data) what percent of the American female population has no major deal breakers. What qualifies as a “deal breaker” is certainly up for debate. Loudly smacking her chewing-gum may be considered a deal breaker for some, but not at the same level as say a woman with herpes. So to determine what were critical deal breakers that would indeed disqualify a woman from being marriage material we had to focus on critical flaws that were not merely unlikable, but would make a happy marriage an impossibility. And while no doubt this list could be unlimited, we focused on 8 deal breakers deemed to be the most poignant, comprehensive, and relevant to the success of a happy marriage, as well as the interests of men.

#1 Obesity/Being Overweight

Despite what fat acceptance “activists” and an increasing percent of American women want to believe, being big is not beautiful. It is disgusting. It's gross. It's physically revolting. And as it just so happens it's unhealthy. But more importantly, as it pertains to whether a woman is marriage material, it immediately destroys the number one thing men seek in women – physical beauty. And though women may howl at the moon and claim that a man should love a woman for who she is on the inside, we already have a name for women we like, but just aren't physically attracted to - “friends.”

Regardless, since physical beauty is a must, this eliminates the 59.6% of young American women who are obese or overweight as marriage material. Certainly, yes, many men are fat themselves. And yes many men marry fat women, have wives who get fat on them, or even manage to have kids with them. But remember the definition of “success” in this study is happily married and you simply cannot be happily married to someone you're not physically attracted to.

#2 Worthless Degrees

While the world celebrates that there are now more women in college than men, nobody has bothered to ask whether it's for something sensible like Accounting or a colossal waste of time like the Liberal Arts. And when you consider whether the degrees women are getting are worthwhile or merely an excuse to attend a very expensive 4 year party, unfortunately 80.5% of the time it's an excuse to party.

However, it is not so much the degree itself that excludes women from being marriage material as it is what it comprehensively says about them. First, it's a declaration as to how realistic and serious women are about their careers, their professions, and their work ethic. Yes, it would be nice to solve poverty, but usually when a young woman majors in the social sciences it's to avoid real work or rigor, at minimum a delusion to “follow her heart and the money will follow.” You WILL be subsidizing her life as she simply lacks the education and skills to command a self-supporting wage. Second, there are HUGE financial consequences for majoring in the wrong thing. Namely, the tonnage of student debt she's incurred and unable to pay off, making her a HUGE financial liability for any future suitor. Third, many of these worthless degrees are simply rank indoctrination, brainwashing women to value their careers, politics, feminism, educations, etc., above love, which is simply antithetical to marriage. If you marry someone with a “Genders Studies” degree they are not going to be a loving supporting wife, but likely an obstinate, nagging shrew that loves her cultish politics and career more than you or your children.

This isn't to say a nice, sweet girl who's majoring in education to become an elementary school teacher is going to be some nagging, confrontational harpy. Nor is it to say that every girl goes to college (only 72.5% of women do). But it is to use women's choice of majors as a proxy as to where their priorities in life lie, how realistic they are about finances, how realistic they are about life, as well as the chances they will be a political, financial, or even emotional liability to your marriage.

* The data for worthless degrees was calculated using the NCES data for all bachelor degrees conferred in 2018. Every degree that did not have an obvious job or profession attached to it, or were notoriously underpaid professions (education, sociology, etc.) or were typically unaccredited degrees that target poor/disadvantaged groups of students (criminal justice, culinary school, etc.), were deemed worthless.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_318.30.asp

#3 Percent Financially Delinquent

As financial problems are cited as the number one cause of divorce, finding a woman who has her financial act together is a must. Furthermore, a woman who cannot pay her bills on time is simply not mature enough to marry. And while no doubt young women today have the added financial pressures of student loans for completely unemployable degrees, no self-respecting man can marry a woman who doesn't pay her bills, or worse, is one of the 6% who declares bankruptcy, upgrading themselves to thieves.

Using “ever delinquent” as the metric in a Federal Reserve study to determine fiscal responsibility, 31.6% of women between the ages of 18-35 have been late at least once paying back their debts. Men are only a few percentage points better, but nearly 1 in every 3 women of marrying age have finances that are prohibitive to marriage. This leaves roughly only 2/3rds of women fiscally responsible, and presumably responsible enough to marry.

Data was an average between two age cohorts from 21-30 and 31-40. The study can be found here: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/gender-related-differences-in-credit-use-and-credit-scores-20180622.htm

#4 Leftist/Socialist/Feminist Politics

While one could make the argument (and be right) that leftist or feminist politics shouldn't be considered a deal breaker (there are democrat men after all), leftist politics are considered a deal-breaker in that they play a role in young women's lives today that goes beyond mere government policy, to that of a political-ideological cult that renders many of them unmarriageable.

In the 1960's when your mother or grandmother, even your curmudgeonly grandfather would vote democrat, it was usually to nobly “help out the little guy” or to perhaps reel in the powers of corporate America. And whether you agreed with them or not, it was to exercise their right to vote and do their part to make America as great as it could be. But for whatever reason they voted democrat it wasn't because they solely valued themselves as “democrats” or derived some kind of life purpose and meaning from it. They were a “housewife” or “plumber” first, who happened to vote for JFK. But today left-leaning politics, and certainly feminism is not about giving the little guy a break or something as mundane as balancing the budget. It has become a substitute for purpose, meaning, value, even love in many young women's lives today. So much so many young women will simply refuse to date non-leftists as a matter of policy, screaming “SWIPE LEFT IF YOU'RE A REPUBLICAN!!!!” (when, in fact, you might be a libertarian).

This makes politics (like other things) a higher priority in leftist women's lives than love. And to truly fall in love (let alone be happily married), you need to put the other person ahead of yourself, and that includes your cultish politics. But worse, this unhealthy obsession with politics, as well as abusing it as a substitute for purpose in life, has many young women flirting with mental illness where they literally hate you because you dare advocate lower taxes or refuse to use made up pronouns. Therefore, it is not the political positions of the democrat party, socialism, or feminism per se that makes these women unmarriageable, but the fact they put it at the center of their lives that render them so. And though this ideological obsession provides left-leaning men a HUGE statistical advantage when it comes to dating (as 65% of young women identify as “democrat” or “feminist”), it will forever sow a seed of doubt as to whether your leftist wife loves you or her politics more.

#5 Single Moms

This variable is very simple. Men don't like raising other men's children. Men are genetically repulsed by other men's genes. Men are also not kosher with being the #2 guy in a woman's life, let alone playing second fiddle to some other guy's kid. And unless the woman was a widow, being a single mom is indicative of poor decision making in the past.

Admittedly, if you're an older man you may not have the luxury to pine for, let alone, hold out for a childless woman. Over time most women will have children and with a 50% divorce rate single moms are an inevitability in every middle-aged man's life. But since this study focuses on younger men who are yet to be married, as well as young women who are not at menopause's door, it is perfectly reasonable and self-respecting to demand your future wife not have another man's kid.

Unfortunately, what you want and what you're going to get are two different things as nearly 40% of single women between the ages of 18-35 are single moms. Worse, the better looking a woman is the higher percent chance she has a kid in tow (this phenomenon was particularly noticeable when surveying online dating profiles in rural areas). The fact is, whether you like it or not, beautiful women attract handsome men and the result is children. Sometimes these people stay married, sometimes they don't, sometimes they were never married at all. But the end result is the average young man today is looking at a dating pool where 4 in every 10 women have some other guy's kid.

#6 STD's

STD's present an interesting problem. What is considered an STD? Is it HPV which nearly half the population will get, yet for the most part is asymptomatic? Is it a death sentence like AIDS? What if it's curable like gonorrhea or chlamydia? What if it's not like herpes? It's hard to pin down what a “deal breaking STD” is.

Furthermore, there are complications when it comes to measuring an STD rate among young women. For instance, the data just doesn't exist for the specific age cohort we're interested in. Different diseases come and go in waves over generations making a stable, usable number an impossibility. And a significant percent of the female population has multiple STD's. There is frankly no way to apply a specific number to the percent of women who have a marriage-disqualifying STD.

Therefore, for the purposes of this study a “marriage-disqualifying STD” was conservatively defined as whether a woman had herpes or not. There are certainly some shortcomings in using this metric, but having herpes is a pretty applicable standard when it comes to marriageability. Most men will adamantly refuse to marry (let alone sleep with) a woman who knowingly has herpes. Herpes is not curable. And there's enough social stigma associated with the disease it's a death knell to your dating life and, consequently, your chances of marriage. A shocking 25% of women are estimated by the CDC to have herpes (though the vast majority of these women are asymptomatic). And remember, that's just one STD. The percent of women with deal breaking STD's is likely higher.

#7 - Mental Illness

Like STD's mental illness also presents a measuring and statistical problem. Do you consider women who ever had a mental illness? Do you only consider women who are chronically mentally ill? Do you consider something serious and permanent like schizophrenia? What about something as minor as dyslexia? Does the suite of “designer mental illnesses” Millennials popularized to get attention in high school count? What about ADHD or “social anxiety disorder?” And who cares if she's faking being bipolar for attention. Isn't that in itself a deal breaker for most men?

Like STD's, an assumption had to be made to simplify the math and just get us into the ballpark. This assumption was that the 25% of women who are on antidepressants are a reflective (though low end) estimate of the overall population of women who are mentally ill to the point they are unqualified to be wives.

#8 - Body Mutilation

The final deal breaker was body mutilation. Like STD's and mental illness, this was also amorphous and intangible. However, mutilating one's body is a pretty clear sign of several things. Mental illness. Bad decision making skills. Immaturity. Financial instability. A lack of purpose and meaning in life. And conformity (especially among women from 18-35). Additionally, physically marring your body not only ruins the number one thing men seek in women (beauty), but can also be visually identified, making it an easily identifiable red flag for any serious seeker of marriage.

But like other metrics, what qualifies as “bodily mutilation?” Is the discreet Chinese proverb tattoo nearly every 20 something girl has a sign of mental illness? Are the “tramp stamps” nearly every Gen X woman got the same? And what if she was a military vet and got the tattoo with her unit in Iraq? Therefore, for the purposes of this study “body mutilation” was considered somebody who had 4 or more tattoos. Non-traditional piercings or other forms of body mutilation (ear gauges for example) were not considered, largely because there isn't enough data about the female population that has them. But there is research (see below) showing the more tattoos women have, the more mentally unstable they are, rendering them for the purpose of this analysis, unmarriageable.

Nearly 1 in 6 (15.3%) of the female population is estimated to have 4+ tattoos.

* Studies/sources for reference:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6347139/

https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2018/07/17/national-tattoo-day-south-jersey-show-us-tattoos/791417002/

https://www.foxnews.com/us/fox-news-poll-tattoos-arent-just-for-rebels-anymore
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783318755017

https://medium.com/daliaresearch/who-has-the-most-tattoos-its-not-who-you-d-expect-1d5ffff660f8

https://www.reference.com/world-view/statistics-body-piercing-f5db4efae39e98ef

https://blog.bodyjewelry.com/statistics-of-body-piercings-in-the-u-s/

Backing Out Dependence/Co-Correlation and Finalizing the Number

When you tally up the numbers above you get the following statistics:

And while you may be tempted to merely multiply these variables together to get the remaining percent of the female population without a major deal breaker (which would result in .54% - roughly one-half of one percent of the female population), this number is misleading because of the co-correlation between these 8 deal breakers.

For example, it may shock you to find out that a feminist with a worthless degree might also...

• have 4+ tattoos

• have financial problems

• be on antidepressants

• and also be fat.

This results in a Venn diagram where one woman can account for several of these traits, overstating the percent of the female population that is unmarriageable and understating the percent of the female population that is.

 

To account for this overlap two statistical methods were employed to back out this co-correlation. These methods resulted in two estimates of the marriageable population - 1.1% and 1.4% - averaging to around 1.25%.

 

This adjusted number is the finalized number we will be using for Method #1 in calculating the percent of marriageable women – 1.25%.