Coronavirus, the destroyer of marriages: Number of weddings drops drastically as divorces increase

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The coronavirus epidemic has decimated many things, and its bad influence did not bypass the institution of marriage. According to statistics, the number of divorces has been the highest in the past half decade, while there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of weddings.

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For example, in 2019, 582 couples decided to get married (in Cacak), and this number was 368 in 2020. There were 130 divorces in 2019, and 152 last year.

"About 60 percent of marriages get divorced based on a court complaint, while 40 are amicable. Married couples do not know each other well enough, they had different upbringings that come to the fore when they have their own children, often the reasons are difficult financial conditions, the lack of money, unresolved housing issues, infidelity of partners, and what is worrying is also violence.

In the past, women suffered, waited for their children to grow up and always found reasons to stay married, now they are somehow encouraged not to suffer violence, and lately it's more and more common that they have the support of the children not to suffer violence and to leave the marital community," Dragoslava Zatezic, a judge in the Basic Court in Cacak, told RINA.

The lack of emotions, money and communication as well as infidelity are the reasons for divorce, which in recent years is most common among families whose children are in primary school and where one of the parents is increasingly finding  children supportive for them to persevere in order to end the marriage. Also, a large number of marriages end due to domestic violence.

In the whole of Serbia, 35,570 couples got married in 2019, while 10,899 divorced, which is the largest number of divorces in the last five years. The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of weddings, but also to an increase in the number of divorces

On average, marriage in Serbia lasts a little over 13 years, and what is surprising is that those who have had their "silver anniversary" are increasingly among those now divorcing.

(Telegraf.rs/Rina)