The average age at which people in England and Wales get married has been rising since the 1970s, with the average age of men marrying women increasing from **** in 1972 to **** by 2019, with the average age for women marrying men going up from **** to **** in the same time period. Since 2014 and the legalization of same-sex marriage in England and Wales, the average age for men marrying men has fluctuated between **** and ****, while the average age for females marrying females has fluctuated between **** and ****. Strong support for same-sex marriage in UK Over ten years after same-sex marriage was legalized in most of the UK, polls have shown consistent support for the legislation. As of May 2025, ** percent of Britons supported same-sex marriage, compared with ** percent who opposed it, and ***** percent who did not know. England and Wales was the first jurisdiction to allow same-sex marriages, with the first marriages taking place in March 2014, followed by Scotland in December of that year. Legislation allowing same-sex marriage was not passed in Northern Ireland until 2019, with the first marriages not taking place in 2020. Most popular wedding dates In 2022, the most popular wedding date across the entire year in England and Wales was July 30, with ***** weddings taking place that day. The next most popular wedding date was August 20, which had ***** weddings, followed by May 28, at *****. All three of these dates were Saturday's, which, at over ** percent of all weddings, was by far the most popular day of the week for weddings to be held the week. As for the most popular month, August had the most weddings held in 2022, at ******, with ****** being held in July, and ****** in June, the second, and third-most popular months for weddings, respectively.

Number of marriages that took place in England and Wales by age, sex, previous partnership status and civil or religious ceremony.

The mean age at first marriage in Spain was, along with Sweden, one of the highest in the European Union. Based on this setup, it is no wonder that the Spanish autonomous communities featured quite elevated numbers - particularly in the Canary Islands, where the average age at first marriage stood at over 41 years old for men and over ** for women in 2023. Easy come easy go Marriage might be undergoing a declining popularity among Spaniards, or so it would seem by its national (heterosexual) marriage figures, which have experienced a slight decrease overtime. In 2023, the Balearic Islands recording the highest numbers on the list of marriage rate in Spain, with a rate of **** marriages per 1,000 people. Moreover, Spain has one of the highest divorce rates in Europe, with **** divorces per 100 marriages carried out in this country in 2020. Ageing: a common problem across the continent The age at first marriage is not the only digit that is on the rise in Spain. Data related to age in the Mediterranean country essentially behaves in a similar fashion as the rest of its European counterparts, whose population is also slowly but surely getting older. In 2023, the life expectancy at birth in Spain stood at ***** years, one of the highest in the world.

Spain had the oldest mean average age of marriage in Europe for both males and females at 36.8 for males, and 34.7 for females in 2022. By contrast, Poland had the youngest average age at marriage for males, at 30.7 and Romania for females at the age of 28.

In 2022, approximately 2,606 women aged between 30 and 34 married a same-sex partner in England and Wales, the most common age group for same-sex marriages among women. For men marrying a same-sex partner, the most common age group was also 30 to 34.

There were 24,284 marriages in Scotland in 2021, an increase of around 12,300 marriages when compared with the previous year when there were 11,986 marriages, the fewest number of marriages in the provided time period. All marriages before 2014 were for opposite-sex marriages, with same-sex marriage first made legal in Scotland on December 16, 2014 following the Marriage and Civil Partnership Act. During this time period, the year with the most marriages was 1940, when there were over 53,500 marriages. Almost half of Scots married In 2018, 47 percent of Scots were either married or in a civil partnership, with a further 37 percent of people being single. Divorced and widowed Scots made up ten and seven percent of the population respectively. For Scots who were married, 32 percent were aged between 45 and 59 with the next most common age group being those aged between 60 and 74 at 28 percent of married people. During the same year, 10 percent of Scots were divorced, with the overall number of divorces in Scotland generally falling since 2006 when there were 13,012. Marriage trends in the rest of the UK For the whole of the United Kingdom, there were 253,112 marriages in 2019, compared with 270,286 in 2018. In the same year, the average age at marriage in England and Wales was 39.7 years for men marrying women, 37.3 years for women marrying men, 40.8 years for men marrying men, and 37.4 for women marrying women. Like in Scotland, the overall number of divorces in the UK has been declining since the mid-2000s, with 112,182 in 2020, compared with 166,669 in 2004.

Since the 1970s, the marriage rate for opposite-sex couples in England and Wales has declined considerably, with the marriage rate per thousand population falling from 84 to 20.3 for men between 1972 and 2022, and from 63.5 to 18.3 for women, during the same time period. Three spikes in the marriage rate can be seen in 1915, 1920 and 1940, all likely influenced by the impact of the First and Second World Wars. The drop in the marriage rate in 2020 can be attributed to the COVID-19 lockdowns.

This survey shows the attitude of people from different age groups towards homosexual marriages in Great Britain in 2014. The average approval of homosexual marriage by all age groups was 69 percent. There was a clear increase of disapproval as the respondents age increased and correspondingly, a decrease in approval.

Annual UK and constituent country figures for births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships and civil partnership dissolutions.

Live births and stillbirths annual summary statistics, by sex, age of mother, whether within marriage or civil partnership, percentage of non-UK-born mothers, birth rates and births by month and mothers' area of usual residence.

This statistic illustrates the findings of a survey on the duration of current relationship or being single in the United Kingdom (UK) in June 2017, by age group. During the survey period, it was found that ** percent of respondents aged between 30 to 59 years, stated that they had been single or married for ten years and longer. Furthermore, it could be seen that the majority of respondents had been either single or in a relationship for longer than *** year.

In 2021, the divorce rate in England and Wales was *** divorces per thousand married couples, which was significantly higher than the rate in 2018, which was ***. The Divorce rate in England and Wales has been falling steadily since a rate of **** was recorded in 2003 and 2004. In the last available data for Scotland in 2008, the divorce rate was ****.

According to the 2020 UNIDOMO questionnaire, Portugal clearly led the list of European countries with the highest divorce rate per 100 marriages. With 91.5 divorces the Portuguese Republic led the list, followed by Spain and Luxembourg. All three countries boast a significantly higher share than the other European countries, each reporting a divorce rate over 80 divorces.

A different way to look at Portugal

While Portugal clearly has the most divorces per 100 marriages, looking at divorce rates per 1.000 inhabitants in other European countries alters the picture of the country as one unsettled by significant numbers of divorces. With nearly 1.7 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants Portugal has roughly the same divorce rate as Germany and the Netherlands. Interesting is furthermore that although marriages in Portugal tend to result in divorce lightly more often as in Luxembourg (80.3%), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg experienced a 0.6 point higher divorce rate.

What about the rest of the World?

While compared with Latin American countries like Guatemala or Peru, ranked among the countries with the lowest divorce rates in the world, Luxembourg’s divorce rate seems excessive. However, when compared with divorce rates (per 1.000 inhabitants) of countries like the United States (2.7) or China (3.5) divorce rates from Luxembourg and Europe are not out of the ordinary.