“Till death do us part” still means something in Canada, according to a recent Canadian Social Trends survey. About 90 percent of married Canadians have only been married only once and are still married.
“Ten per cent of respondents in the study had married twice, and less than one per cent had gotten hitched more than twice.”
The average time respondents had been married was 23.5 years. GO CANUCKS!
Since Spain legalized gay marriage almost one year ago to the day, it seems only a handful of folks (about 1,300) have taken the plunge. This month, one of the previously happy Spanish couples made unhappy history when the first same-sex divorce was initiated. Happier history will happen later in the summer when the first militaryman-on-militaryman marriage will take place in Spain. Two men, both named Alberto and both privates in Spain’s Air Force, will tie the knot but have no plans to don their dress uniforms for the ceremony.
If you are a Cambodian citizen and your lovergirl/boy is from Taiwan, you better get hitched quick. According to the Taipei Times, “the [Chinese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs will stop authenticating marriage certificates between Taiwanese and Cambodian citizens next month because the Cambodian government considers Taiwanese to be citizens of the People’s Republic of China.” After July 7, the government will no longer provide marriage authentication services for Taiwanese-Cambodian couples. Bummer.
Think gay and interracial marriages are a hot issues? Well, last week, an Indian woman married a snake! Thirty year old Bimbala Das claims she married her cobra husband not only for love, but also because she saw her snake husband in a dream she had twelve years ago. Two thousand people came to watch Das, dressed in a white silk sari, marry a replica of the serpent. The snake itself skipped the ceremony and stayed curled up in his ant hill home.
Bimbala said: “Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way. Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the Cobra lives, it (the snake) always comes out to drink.”
Huh. A saucer of lactose-free milk will draw my cats out of hiding but you don’t see me marrying them.
Quite informative. The Taiwan-Cambodia marriage issue blew my mind away!
It’s really bizarre. I think marriage shouldn’t have borders. You can’t help who you love, after all!
ooh I didn’t realise that such issues existed!
I’m just still so happy about the Canada thing. And I’m not even Canadian!
I’m happy about Canada, too, NtB! I’m not Canadian, but my grandfather was, so I’ve got a bit of a soft spot. ; )
Best of luck and joy to Alberto and Alberto, too.
As to the snake lady, I’m with you, NtB. I love my kitties dearly, but no way in hell am I going to marry one because he comes when I feed him!
I am Canadian! (insert popular beer commercial here)… but I digress.
I’m delighted to hear these stats. I got married in February, & I have great faith that this will last. Nice to have some stats backing me up. 🙂
That snake thing.. odd, but on the other hand, at least his lack of, um, limbs? Opposable digits? Heck, humanity? means that Bimbala is guarenteed to be free of some of the more common marriage ailments. Snakes won’t leave the toilet seat up, make huge piles of laundry, try & sleep with your sister &/or brother-in-law, use your credit cards, etc… Really, judging by some of the horror stories I’ve heard, having a poisonous snake that sleeps in an ant-pile is pretty straight-forward!
I just pray to God that snake lady isn’t going to try and consumate the marraige!
LoL patient one!
Oh, I am so proud of Canadians! My mother does not want me to marry out of my race (she isn’t going to stop me if I do though) b/c she has an inherent distrust of white men but I am going to tell her about this. She wants to move to Vancouver (a.k.a. Hongcouver) anyway.
Could the dream of the snake be a more phallic symbol? Let’s all refer to Freud, shall we?
Either a phallic symbol, or she has an Eve complex and secretly wants to be married to Satan. Come to think of it, some friends of mine used to have a snake named Natas (“Satan” backwards)…