[imagesource: Bregman Moodley Attorneys]

The wedding bells in South Africa seems to have been the loudest in the last three months.

Those who were waiting patiently during the COVID-19 lockdowns to marry their partner are finally walking the aisle and tying the knot.

But actually, according to a report released by Stats SA, most Saffas aren’t that keen to get married anymore.

I know, shocking, considering the boom in wedding pictures that likely popped up on your Facebook feed recently.

As BusinessTech reported, the stats body has noted how marriages are becoming less common in our country, begging the question of whether or not marriage as an institution is mostly an outdated tradition at this stage.

In the Marriages and Divorce 2020 report, the number of folks officially tying the knot decreased at a steady rate between 2011 and 2020:

Civil marriages fell by 22,5% between 2011 and 2019 and declined by a further 31,1% in 2020.

Sure, the restrictions on gatherings in 2020 may be partly to blame for this downward trend, but at the end of the day, it seems fewer Saffas are interested in traditional marriage partnerships.

Even the recognition of same-sex marriages in South Africa has not done much to reverse the declining trend.

Interestingly, most civil unions were registered in Gauteng (659) and Western Cape (434), and the lowest were in Northern Cape (6) and Limpopo (5).

In addition, most of those getting married are waiting until they are much older to do so:

For civil marriages, the median age of bridegrooms increased from 36 years in 2016 to 37 years in 2020, whereas that of brides increased from 32 years to 33 years over the same period.

The average age difference between brides and bridegrooms is 4 years.

It makes sense that as marriage numbers decrease, so too, are divorce numbers:

It is possible that some of the decline in divorces could stem from the fact that fewer people are getting married.  Divorces decreased by 32,1% from 23 710 in 2019 to 16 097 cases granted in 2020.

The naughty 40s seems to be the period in which most folks get divorced, with the median age at the time of divorce in 2020 being 45 years for males and 41 years for females.

Eish, hey, I guess all this data reduces any pressure to get married soon.

[sources:statssa&businesstech]