How do you check a surprising statistic about married men?

Start with the exact number and what it counts. Is it a share of all married men, a rate over a certain period, or a change compared with another group? Without the denominator and the timeframe, a dramatic-sounding figure can be hard to interpret.

I’d look for the original data, not just a headline repeating the claim. Check who was surveyed, how many people took part, and whether the sample actually represents the population being discussed. A small or narrowly selected group may tell you little about married men generally.

Also check whether the claim is describing a link or saying one thing causes another. Even a well-measured difference between married and unmarried people doesn’t, by itself, show that marriage caused it. The underlying study may have measured something much narrower than the summary suggests.