We are getting married and divorced less. And we are also legally separating less, specifically, ten times less than in 1989. A day after the Episcopal Conference announced that church weddings are declining in Spain (33,500 last year; 34,747 in 2022), the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) spoke out. Marital dissolutions are also decreasing, according to the judiciary's governing body.
The General Council of the Judiciary has reviewed the figures for the third quarter of last year and has concluded that the total number of divorce petitions decreased by 1.4% (religious weddings decreased by 5%). There are many types of romantic breakups, but three are judicial: annulment, legal separation, and divorce. Annulment means that the marriage never existed due to legal requirements not being met.
On the contrary, divorce implies that there was indeed a marriage and that it has come to an end. Separation means that spouses stop living together, although they remain formally married, meaning that unlike the previous scenarios, the bond between the couple is not extinguished or broken. In the period analyzed by the Judiciary, all requests for dissolution or annulment of marriage decreased.
From October to December 2023, there were 7,463 non-consensual divorce petitions filed, which is 0.8% less than in the same period a year ago. Even greater decline is seen in the 186 non-consensual separation claims, which are 17% lower than those in the third quarter of 2023. In terms of consensual claims, mutual agreement divorces (11,189) decreased by 1% and consensual separations (474) by 13%.
The average is 39.6 lawsuits per 100,000 inhabitants. Above this figure are the Canary Islands (49.7), Valencia (44.1), La Rioja (43), the Balearic Islands (42.8), Andalusia (42.5), Castilla-La Mancha (40.4), Murcia (40.2) and Galicia (39.8). Catalonia, where only one out of ten weddings is religious, is just under the average at 39, although significantly lower than the Basque Country, the area least prone to these legal disputes (32.1).
The data for the third quarter of 2023 reinforce the downward trend reflected in the historical records of the CGPJ (which have been compiled for over 40 years). The most striking case is that of divorces (whether consensual or not). In 1989, the higher courts of justice recorded 34,672 of these separations, which were ten times less than last year: 3,408.
All-time high
The year 2006 was a record year for divorces (whether by mutual agreement or not): 141,000 lawsuits
Skeptics say that statistics is the science according to which if Jose eats nothing and Juan eats a chicken, between the two of them they have eaten half a chicken. If we keep 1989 as the starting point (data collection began in 1981), not everything decreases. The non-consensual divorces were then 13,128, far from the 36,082 of last year. The same goes for the consensual ones: from 9,935 they have grown to 52,803.
But the numbers reflect a consistent downward trend (and uninterrupted in Catalonia) since 2006, when divorces reached their historical peak: 55,672 non-consensual and 85,645 mutual agreement divorces (over 141,000 in total). Nullity cases have also experienced a significant decline, dropping from 83 to 51 in 35 years. Last year, there were only six in Catalonia. And none in the Canary Islands, Valencia, La Rioja, or Navarra.
