The number of Italians marrying more than once and tying the knot in non-church ceremonies are both on the rise, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Tuesday.
Looking at data for 2007, Istat found that 33,070 Italians got married for the second time, compared to 31,846 the year before, and that they represented 13.2% of weddings celebrated that year.
Civil marriage ceremonies in Italy rose from 83,628 in 2006 to 86,639 in 2007 and represented 34.6% of the total for that year, a whopping 50% jump from 15 years before, Istat said.
The was a slight increase in the number of marriages in 2007 over the previous year, up 4,368 of which 3,144 were first marriages, for a total of 250,360.
The rise in the number of marriages, Istat observed, was not sufficient to indicate any reversal in the general downward trend which began in 1972 when there were 7.7 marriages per 1,000 residents compared to 4.2 in 2007.
In 1972, Istat recalled, there were 392,000 first marriages, 93.5% of the total, while in 2007 there were 217,290, representing 86.7% of the total.
According to Istat, the decline in first marriages was the result of a growing number of couples feeling it was unnecessary to make their union official.
Istat also found that people are waiting longer to get married for the first time with the average age of grooms now 32.8 years and brides 29.7 years.
Marriages between an Italian and a foreigner were stable in 2007, compared to the previous year, and represented 13.8% of the total, as opposed to less than 5% ten years earlier.
