Amid a National Public Radio feature story this morning about “hooking up”, a point was made about the rising average age of marriage. A sub-point also emerged: Idaho was listed as having, on average, the youngest married couples in the country.

When we pulled the census stats on this and averaged marriage age for men and women, Idaho appeared to rank second (behind Utah) rather than first. (The average age at marriage in Idaho was 24.6 years for men and 22.8 for women, compared with the national average of 26.7 and 25.1.)

The rundown of states by marriage age, though, does match up remarkably well against red-blue measures. After Utah and Idaho, two of the reddest states, is Oklahoma, also among the most crimson. The red of the low-age top 10: Arkansas, Kentucky, Alaska, Wyoming, Texas, Alabama and Tennessee. All were McCain states in 2008.

At the other end of the list, oldest at marriage: the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and Maryland, all blue states and (except Pennsylvania and maybe New Jersey) among the bluest. All went for Obama in 2008.

Oregon and Washington are close to the national average on marriage age.