KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 27 — More Malaysians got married in 2018 compared to 2017, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia’s (DOSM) annual Marriage and Divorce Statistics data released today.

The number of marriages increased by 1.2 per cent to reach 206,253 in 2018, but the crude marriage rate (CMR) — the ratio of marriages to the average population — remained at 6.4 per 1,000 people.

The number of Muslim marriages in 2018 was 150,098, an increase of 1.9 per cent from 2017. In comparison, the number of non-Muslim marriages fell 0.5 per cent to 56,155 in 2018.

Last year, a typical groom would have been 28 years old on average and would have wed a 26-year-old bride.

This was a slight fall from the median groom age in 2017, which was 29 years old.

Most marriages recorded were of those aged between 27 and 29.

The oldest groom in 2018 was 92 years, while the oldest bride in 2018 was 83. In 2017, the oldest groom was 91, and the oldest bride was 84.

Men over the age of 18 were more likely to be married than not, at 50.7 per cent, while girls aged 16 and above as well as women were slightly less likely to be so, at 47 per cent.

This was marginally up from 2017, when the rates for men and teenage girls as well as women had been 47.2 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively.

Overall, divorces rose 0.1 per cent to 50,356 in 2018. For Muslims, this increased 1.4 per cent to reach 39,809 in 2017.

The crude divorce rate (CDR) remained, however, at 2.0 per 1,000 Muslims.

For non-Muslims, the divorce rate fell by 4.9 per cent to 10,087 in 2018.

The average divorcees in 2018 were a 37-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman, similar to the previous year.

Unlike marriages, girls aged 16 and older as well as women were marginally more likely to be divorced than men aged 18 and above, at 6.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent, respectively.