Archives for May 16th, 2006

Everything Slovenes have ever done, and ever do: it’s a sin.

Novala kindly sent along this story from ORF, which has good news and bad news about marriages in Europe. The bad news is that nearly every second marriage ends in divorce. In 2004, 2.2 million people in the EU got hitched, and in that same time period a million people split up. The good news is that Slovenia wasn’t as badly hit as other countries, because no one’s bothering to get married here in the first place. Slovenia had just 3.3 marriages per 1000 inhabitants — the lowest in the entire union. (Far behind pack leader Cyprus, which boasted 7.2 marriages per 1000 inhabitants.)

But what this also means is that many Slovenian couples are simply rejecting marriage in favor of… LIVING IN SIN. (click for special effect) Quite frankly, I don’t blame them for LIVING IN SIN, because getting married is a costly affair that isn’t really encouraged by the government. Financially, it’s a mistake. For example, if you remain boyfriend & girlfriend and if you have kids, one of you can declare yourself as a single parent — and enjoy the tax benefits that go along with that. Please note that you don’t actually have to break up or anything. The boyfriend simply lists his official address somewhere else, but continues living with his girlfriend and family. Of course, you run the risk of getting caught defrauding the government, but think about how terribly hard it would be for them to prove it in court. You could always claim you were just visiting, or that they caught you in the middle of an ongoing reconciliation process. Besides, Slovenian courts are among the most log-jammed in Europe, to the point where they’ve even roused the wrath of Strasbourg.

In short, it would actually make good business sense for my wife and I to get, as the Germans say, a Schein-Scheidung (fake divorce). We’d save a ton. We won’t, though, because we’re sentimental dopes. And honest, too. (Unfortunately)

But it’s also important to point out that, according to this page, when Slovenes actually do get together, they stay together. Slovenia’s divorce rate is just 26% — significantly lower than places like Austria (38%), Germany (41%), Canada (45%), the U.S. (49%) or Belarus (68%). As an immigrant to Slovenia, I’m honor-bound to keep that number low. You know how that one saying goes… 

(Thanks Novala!)