29 Aug 2021

Even in times of difficulty and uncertainty such as that of COVID-19, life must go on. 

The marriage institution in the country best exemplifies this. 

Here, when everything else around is crumbling, the institution has pierced through the darkness of the pandemic and continues to grow comfortably Marriages in Botswana increased by 6.9 per cent from 2019 through 2020, according to a marriage statistics report of 2020. 

The report, published by Statistics Botswana says marriages have been on an upward trend since 2018, after a slight deep in 2017. 

However, there was a change in the pattern of marriage occurrence last year as compared to the previous year, with the first half of the year realising low marriages and a high number observed in the second half of the year. 

That is easily explainable by COVID-19 safety and prevention interventions imposed by the government such as social distancing, limitation on gathering and crowd sizes, and restrictions on travel. 

“These are factors that would have forced couples to reconsider their wedding plans,” the report states. Furthermore the country was on complete lockdown during the months of April and May 2020, hence low marriages during the months, says the report. 

The months of June to August experienced an increase in the number of marriages compared to the same period the previous year, probably due to deferred weddings from the months of April and May and the easing of restrictions for Covid-19 protocols, says the report. 

An interesting observation is the age of those getting married. According to the report there were twenty-five marriages in which the brides were aged below 21. 

All the grooms were aged 21 or older. Ages 35-39 and 30-34 age group for males and females respectively had the highest number of marriages. 

The report shows that on average men marry older compared to women, which leads to the conclusion that men tend to form relationships with women younger than themselves. 

For example more women than men married at ages younger than 35 while more men than women married at the ages of 35years and older. 

Across the age categories 82 percent of grooms were older than the bride. 

Only 11.1 percent of the grooms were younger, while 6.9 per cent comprised partners are of the same age. The report notes that men tend to marry younger women irrespective of the previous marital status of the bridegroom. 

“It is however interesting to note that, compared to spinsters, women who were previously married tend to marry men who are younger than them.” 

The report says about 10.8 percent of grooms were younger than their brides whose marital status were spinster at the time of marriage, while brides whose marital status were divorcee and widow stood at 20.6 and 26.8 percent respectively. 

The report says Gaborone and Kweneng East recorded the highest number of marriages with each recording 10.8 per cent of all marriages in 2020, while Sowa Town registered the lowest number of marriages, accounting for 0.1 percent of all marriages. ends