Marriages may be made in heaven, but they are legalized only when the Ministry of Justice says so. And, the Ministry of Justice can say so only when the marriage registry-clerk gives his or her nod after entering it into the registry book or computer file. With the blessings of the registry-clerk, the Statistics and Research Department at the Ministry of Justice has just published the authentic marriage and divorce figures for the country.
When the statistics show that there were a total of 6,872 marriages in the country during the first six months, we cheer the newly weds and wish them the very best. But then, the statistics also point out that more than 56 percent of marriages in Kuwait end up in divorce. Figures show that there were a total of 3,846 divorces in the first half of the year.
Lawmakers could be right you know; maybe there is an expat angle to this large divorce rate. Hopefully, once we get rid of these pesky foreigners the divorces in the country will come down.
Pointing to hope on this front, while there were 682 marriages recorded between Kuwaiti men and expatriate women during the first six months, there were also 388 divorces. And, while there were 260 cases of Kuwaiti women marrying expatriates, it was heartwarming to know that over 83 percent of such marriages end up in divorces, with 216 divorces recorded between Kuwaiti women and their foreign husbands; whew!
While we are at it, we need to also mention that 144 Kuwaiti men decided to marry Beidoun women, and divorces between this pairing were 42. On the other hand, while only 54 Kuwaiti women married Beidoun men, then there were 34 cases where such marriages ended up in divorce.
Go figure out why so many married couples end up divorcing their partners, or better still, let’s blame it on the expatriates.
