E6K+table+driscrition-+Bell

The table compares the statistics of marriage of Australians for the years 1981 and 2002. Overall, there is a trend towards fewer marriages, more divorces and couples are trending to wait longer before getting married.

Firstly, there was a noticeable trend that the ages of both brides and grooms increased. In 1981, the average age of bride and groom were 23.3 and 25.9 respectively but these figures had increased to 29 for females and 31 for males in 2002. Next, in 2002 the percentage of couples who lived together before marriage was 73% whereas in 1981 it was only 42%. Anther marketable trend is that the number of divorces rose from 41,412 in 1981 to 55,330 in 2002. in contrast, there were 113,905 registered Australian marriages in 1981, by 2002 thus had declined to 105,400.

There were some possible reasons for these tends. First of all, the decline of the number of registered marriages and rise in percentage of couples who lived together before marriage may be the results of the young people trend to accept the de facto relationships more than getting married. Secondly, people become more ambitious nowadays, people focus on their education and try to build up their career before settling down to marriage and family, that certain is the reason why the average ages between men and women trending to get marriage letterer. Moreover, as the fact that divorces have become more socially acceptable and easier to obtain, people are less likely to stay in an uncomfetable family relationship now which due to the divorce rate increased markedly by a 20-year period.