Weddings: a historic overtaking

According to Istat data, for the first time in history marriages by civil ceremony have surpassed those by religious ceremony. Very strong is the territorial gap where in the North the share of marriages with civil ceremony is 63.9 percent while in the South less than half. The growth of the civil rite, the statistics institute notes, is driven by the increase in second marriages and unions in which at least one of the spouses is a foreigner. What's more, looking at the overall data, a total of 195,778 marriages were celebrated in Italy last year, about 4,500 more than in 2017, but in general the age of first marriages is getting older and older. On average, grooms are around 33 years old and brides 31. The main influence is the decline in the birth rate initiated since the 1970s, which after a while has led to a gradual reduction in the size of the 16-34 age group. What do you think?