Question

I have a marital status field in my users table that its just varchar
yet I only want to give the users four options (married, single, widowed and divorced) and i want to have the correct one selected when Im editing the form.. is it possible? please help.

Answer 1

This should point you in the right direction:

<%= Html.DropDownList("listName", new string[] { "Married", "Single", "Widowed", "Divorced" }
.Select(m => new SelectListItem(){
    Selected = model.MaritalStatus == m,
    Text = m,
    Value = m
})); %>

Assuming that your model has a ‘MaritalStatus’ field,

Selected = model.MaritalStatus == m

will select the status of your model by default.