Drop in number of marriages

While the number of marriages in Malta has dropped by 1,068 between 1975 and last year, the number of marriages in Church has practically dropped by half while civil marriages have increased by 56 times, Mgr Philip Calleja said.

Mgr Calleja is the driving force behind the Catholic Enquiry Centre, which works on an array of issues, including making contact with Catholics who, for some reason, contract civil marriage.

Speaking in an interview, he said there were 3,085 marriages in 1975, of which 3,077 were in Church and eight were civil marriages. In 2001, there were 2,017 marriages, of which 1,568 were marriages in Church while 449 were civil marriages.

He said another area of concern was the way the Maltese population was structured:

"In the ages between 15 and 39, which is when men start getting seriously interested in women with a view to marry, there is a large surplus of men. For instance there are 759 more men than women in the 15 to 19 age bracket, 990 more men then women in the 20 to 24 age bracket, 847 more men than women in the 25 to 29 age bracket, 639 more men than women in the 30 to 34 age bracket and 519 more men than women in the 35 to 39 age bracket," Mgr Calleja said.

He recalled that because of emigration in the 1960s, there was a point where there were 9,000 more women than men at marrying age and the single young women migrants' scheme was launched to give the opportunity to Maltese migrants to marry a Maltese wife.

Although at face value, the fact that there were more men than women at marrying age may not be much of a problem as there are always people who prefered not to get married, such a surplus of men was of concern to the Catholic Enquiry Centre because such a situation encouraged marriages to foreigners, and this in part explained the rise in the number of civil marriages, he said.

"If one were to look at statistics, in 1975, out of a total of eight civil marriages, there were two Maltese who married foreigners. In 2001, there were 227.

"This is not to say that the number of Maltese couples who are getting married at the civil registry only has not increased. In 1975, out of a total of eight civil marriages, only one was a Maltese couple. In 2001 there were 51 couples who married civilly. But practically half the civil marriages that take place involve a Maltese bride or groom," he said.

Mixed marriages were of concern to the Catholic Enquiry Centre because the number of Maltese marrying people from other religions was increasing. Last year, there were 84 Maltese women who married Muslims. There were 91 Maltese men who married foreigners, 23 of whom were Muslims.

There were 464 births outside marriage from a total of 4,255 births in the year 2000, he said. Most such births occurred at younger ages and mothers under 24 gave birth to 298 children out of wedlock, he said.

Mgr Calleja said the Catholic Enquiry Centre last year organised a course in conjunction with the Faculty of Theology of the university to furnish volunteers with sound knowledge to enable them to assist in the work of the centre.

The centre works on the same lines as the Blessed Nazju Falzon, who used to do a lot of pastoral work with foreigners, he said.

This evening, certificates will be handed out to those who attended the course at Ta' Giezu church in Valletta, where Blessed Nazju Falzon used to teach. Certificates will be presented by the dean of the faculty of theology, Prof. Gorg Grima.