Courtesy of the US Census, here are some non-fattening confections for your amusement.

"One legend has it that Valentine's Day originated to commemorate the anniversary of the death of St. Valentine, a Roman clergyman who was executed on Feb. 14, about 270 A.D., for secretly marrying couples in defiance of the emperor," explains the Census. "According to another, the holiday began as a Roman fertility festival. Americans probably began exchanging handmade valentines in the early 1700s."

In the 1840s, Massachusetts native Esther Howland began selling the nation's first mass-produced Valentine cards. Today the number of Valentine cards exchanged is about 180 million. Nearly 50 percent of all Valentine's Day cards are purchased in the six days prior to the day. Sixty-five percent of households purchase a greeting card for Valentine's Day and 40 percent are bought by parents.

Other popular ways to celebrate Valentine's Day are:

• "date night" (44 percent)

• giving candy (38 percent)

• flowers (32 percent)

• gift cards (29 percent)

• plush (i.e., stuffed toys) (21 percent)

• perfume/cologne (12 percent)

• jewelry (11 percent) and other gifts (17 percent)

(Source: Hallmark research)

So what does Valentine's Day have to do with the U.S. Census? Our government wants to know how households are being formed and by whom.

Currently there are 120 non-Hispanic white single men (i.e., never married, widowed or divorced) who are in their 20s for every 100 single women of the same age. But the odds shift significantly toward the ladies looking for Hispanic men -- 153 men to 100 women. Ditto for Asian men (132) to every 100 Asian women. Like whites, black men are less plentiful than black women -- 92 to 100.

The odds of finding a man are worse for older singles. There are only 33 single non-Hispanic white men for every 100 single women, 38 single Hispanic men per 100 single women, 33 black men for every 100 black women, and 28 Asian single men for every 100 single Asian women.

Despite the odds, over 2.2 million marriages take place in the United States annually. That breaks down to more than 6,000 a day. First marriage ages for women are estimated to be 25.8 years, and for first marriage males -- 27.4.

"Men and women in northeastern states generally have a higher median age at first marriage than the national average," says the Census. "In Massachusetts, for example, women were a median of 27.4 years old and men 29.1 years of age at first marriage. States where people typically marry young include Utah, where women were a median of 21.9 years and men, 23.9 years.

Because of the disparity in population of females to males only 54 percent of females and 57 percent of males over 15 years of age are married. About 4.2 percent of opposite-sex couples prefer to cohabit.

Published: February 14, 2006

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