More married Maltese couples are getting separated when compared to the number of new marriages in 2018, with an average of 3.6 marriage separations happening every day in 2018.

Not only that, but there were more civil weddings in 2018 than church weddings, with 1,423 couples choosing civil weddings and 1,129 choosing to be married within the church.

Weddings involving foreign couples were not indicated separately.

The information was revealed in parliament by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, and comes right after the news that attendance in Mass is dropping drastically.

Civil weddings have been on the rise, exceeding church weddings since 2016

In 2018, there were 290 notes of amicable separation, 907 letters of mediation in contentious separations and 114 applications for separation cases, coming to a total of 1,311 separations.

In Gozo alone, there were 47 marriage separation cases in 2018.

Here’s a breakdown of church weddings vs civil weddings in 2010, 2017, and 2018, as compiled by the Times of Malta

What do you think of these new statistics?

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]