BOSTON -- A magazine cover-story shocker 20 years ago said that statistics showed that a 40-year-old single women was more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to tie the knot.

Television station WCVB reported that Newsweek is now rethinking "The Marriage Crunch." Those statistics turned out to be too pessimistic.

Sally Jackson was one of the 14 women who was profiled in the 1986 article. She spoke out Tuesday about the new article.

"I still believe that people should be happy in their lives, whether they are single or married, and I was lucky enough to find an incredibly wonderful man, and I did get married 12 years ago," Jackson said.

She said she didn't realize how the original magazine article would be perceived.

"I became kind of the spokesman for happy spinsters. And there was this assumption in the world that all women were dying to get married."

The article said that a woman's chance of getting married dwindled as she got older, saying that, at 30, the chance of getting married was 20 percent, dropping to 5 percent by 35.

In an article in Newsweek's current edition, it says women age 40 now have a 40.8 percent of getting married, but Jackson said that the researchers still missed the point.

"The important thing is to be happy, not to be single or married. We've all seen people who were hell bent on getting married and they got married to the wrong person, and then it's surprising that happily ever after doesn't necessarily exist," Jackson said.