Men Form The Longest Relationships

The Netherlands: 20 years after legalizing LGBT marriage, it turned out that men form the most durable relationships.

On the occasion of the anniversary of this groundbreaking change, the Dutch statistical agency CBS has published data summarizing the past years. They show, among other things, that marriages between men are the most durable of all. In the first year of the new law, almost 1,300 men and 1,100 women took advantage of the possibility of concluding same-sex marriage, and by the beginning of 2021, there were over 20,000 same-sex married couples in the entire Netherlands.

Marriages between men are the most stable.

The data provided by CBS also show that about 400 homosexual marriages break up in the Netherlands each year, with women being twice as likely to break up than men. According to calculations, an average of 25 percent within 10 years. homosexual women and 14 percent. homosexual men decide to divorce, compared to 16% in traditional marriages. The conclusion is clear - gay marriage is the most solid. Legalization of LGBT marriages in the Netherlands.

"Being the first country to open marriage to same-sex couples in 2001, we made history," said Astrid Oosenbrug, head of the Dutch gay rights organization COC.

When the decision was made to legalize same-sex marriage in the Netherlands on April 1, 2001, it was a global event - no other country had ever dared to take such an important step towards social equality before. The media there were very cautious at the time - journalists reportedly did not even plan to deal with this matter. However, when they saw that dozens of reporting teams from all over the world came to the country to document their first homosexual weddings, it was difficult for them to remain passive.

In an interview with OpenDemocracy, Henk Krol, a veteran in the fight for gay rights who fought for this historic shift in Dutch law two decades ago, mentions the contrast between how she was perceived in the Netherlands and how she was perceived internationally. "People here were used to [same-sex] marriage," he explains, "LGBT couples have held" wedding "ceremonies here for years, as registered same-sex partnerships were legalized in 1998. But the fact that we were the first country to grant them marital equality was new."

Homosexual partnerships and marriages.

Among the couples who got married in 2001, as many as 42 percent. they were relationships previously formalized as partnerships. Interestingly, even after LGBT marriage is legalized, relatively many same-sex couples choose registered partnerships over marriage. According to data provided by CBS, this applies to around 500 couples a year, and since 2015, the number of gay and heterosexual couples who choose to have such a relationship instead of marriage has been steadily increasing.

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