Singleness wins over marriage
BARCELONA, 01/14, 2010

Customs and habits related to marriage have changed in Spain. People born in the 60s, who are now in their forties, are opting more and more for an unmarried state. This tendency is increasing in the generation born in the 1970s.

Spanish people get married less and later than they did, and there is an upward tendency to choose definitive singleness, which has a direct influence on the extremely low birth rates. These conclusions come from a recent sociological study published by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS).

Juan Ignacio Martínez Pastor, professor of Sociology at the UNED (Spain´s distance learning university), declared in an interview with Efe that almost all women born in the 50s chose marriage, and only 5% preferred to remain single. He has recently published the study «Nupcialidad y cambio social en España» (Marriage rate and social change in Spain), edited by the CIS.

Martínez Pastor states that Spanish people get married less and later than they did, and that the study of this social phenomenon is very important, because marriage is the core of the family and the marriage rate determines fertility (whose decrease in Spain is evident) to a large extent.

The figures are quite revealing. Only 25% of women born in the second half of the 1970s got married before turning 30, a percentage that rises to 80% in women aged 50. According to the university professor, women born in the 60s were the ones that clearly changed the marital pattern. «This was a turning-point». 11% of women and 15% of men born in the second half of the 60s ruled out marital union.

The expert on family and work sociology states that both percentages are «very high» when compared to the «traditional 5%», and that in this group «there are very few people cohabiting and most of them live alone, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have sexual relationships».

Another distinctive feature of Spain, says Martínez Pastor, is that the higher the education and the more successful the professional career of a woman, the less likely she is to get married. This is due to the great difficulty in reconciling personal, work and family life in the country, whereas the same negative connection is not made in places like Sweden or the United States.

Other countries have solved this problem by granting more family assistance and hiring young people with low salaries to take care of the children. Martínez Pastor adds that this tendency is also starting in Spain.

According to the results of the study about the marriage rate, the delay in getting married that is being observed in Spain is motivated by a variety of factors. Among them, we can find higher education levels, job insecurity, house prices and a change of values. Marriage, though relevant for most of Spanish people, is no longer mandatory and has become an optional extra, among other reasons because «the influence of religion is broken, there is more individualism, more freedom to choose and less social pressure».

Today, most people are «tolerant or even indifferent towards pre-marital relationships and living together without any marriage project in mind. What before was regulated by marriage is no longer regulated», explains Martinez Pastor.

Spanish society doesn’t punish those who have children without being married. There is a minority which condemns cohabitation, but the majority wants equal rights for common law marriage and marriage. In its almost 300 pages, the study deals with the change in the value system as the engine of demographic change, the decline in the marriage rate, and the marital agenda.

Source: EFE, ADN / ACPress.net


450th anniversary of the ´heresy trials´

MADRID - November 13, 2009

This year sees the 450th anniversary of the notorious autos da fe, or heresy trials, conducted in Seville and Valladolid by the Catholic Inquisition. Many Protestants, converted through reading secretly imported Bibles and Reformation literature in the 16th century, were burnt at the stake for their beliefs.

On October 31st, Reformation Day, Madrid Evangelical Council organised an exhibition recalling the martyrdom of these brothers and sisters in the faith, victims of the awful religious intolerance of the day. The exhibition also shows the history of Spanish Protestantism.

In 1559 and 1560, four trials were held in Valladolid and Seville, followed by the public execution of those the Inquisition had found guilty of deviation from Catholic beliefs. A year earlier, the king, Philip II, had presided over just such a trial in Madrid. Many of those who were condemned were Protestants. The novelist, Miguel Delibes, wrote about the Protestant community in his home city of Valladolid in his book, El hereje (The heretic), which was published a few years ago.

As well as the exhibition, the Anglican Bishop of Madrid, Carlos López, spoke and the Evangelical Choir of Madrid performed. Medals of honour, which are given to Evangelicals for outstanding work in the community, were awarded to the Spanish Bible Society, the Fliedner Trust and to pastor José Palma.

Source: CEM, FEREDE / ACPress.net