Fewer people than ever are getting married

According to a new study, only fifty-one percent of adults over the age of eighteen are married in the U.S. That figure represents an all-time low and a seven-percent drop from a survey taken in 2000. How can we decipher these chilling new numbers? Is everyone going to die alone? Is Western Civilization finally coming to its oft-predicted end? Is this somehow related to the Kardashians?

Probably not. Mostly, according to researchers, people are broke, scared of divorce, and not as pressured as they used to be to officially lock things down. “In the 1950s, if you weren’t married, people thought you were mentally ill,” said one researcher. “Marriage was mandatory. Now it’s culturally optional.” Millions of couples are now opting to just live together, a demographic that saw a thirteen percent jump in the past year alone.

Researchers also point to the fact that more twenty-somethings today come from divorced families, and thus are way more skittish about jumping into marriage. But college graduates are still much more likely to get married than adults with just a high-school education. "They’re pulling in two incomes, marrying and doing pretty well,” said the researcher. “People without college educations are having a harder time finding jobs, and they’re reluctant to marry."

So in spite of everything, is the takeaway here that an "MRS Degree" is still kind of a real thing?