CIVIL marriages taking place in the Balearic Islands are double in number to those weddings which take place through the Catholic Church, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) said yesterday.
The figures, said the Institute which had conducted the research for a government population movement survey, mean that the Balearic Islands is proportionally one of the regions of the country registering the highest number of civil marriages.
Last year in the Balearics, confirmed the INE, there were 4'349 marriages of which 2'972 were conducted as civil ceremonies. Of the remaining number, 1'356 were weddings in Catholic churches and 21 were religious, but non-Catholic ceremonies.
Throughout Spain, reported the INE, 175'952 marriages took place last year, 94'993 were civil whilst 80'174 were Catholic and 785 were ceremonies conducted under other religious rites.
Making comparisons with the previous year of 2008, the number of marriages taking place in the Balearics rose by 5.1 percent in 2009. The INE was also able to show that 142 same-sex weddings took place on the Islands last year - 96 gay, and 46 lesbian ceremonies.
In 2009, the Balearic Islands was one of the regions of Spain where the highest proportion of marriages took place in which one of the partners, or both, was of foreign origin - 1'655 fell into this category out of a total of 4'349, 39.34 percent.
The only regions showing a higher proportion of such marriages were the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa where percentages were 48.72 and 54.5 percent respectively.
The Institute's findings also reveal that the Balearic Islands was the region of Spain with the highest proportion of births to foreign mothers last year - 3'965 out of a total of 11'994 births, or 33.06 percent.