In the summer on rural highways and high-speed roads of Finland there are unusual signs – red hearts. They specify a way to places of the wedding celebrations, more than half of which by old tradition are held in summer. Especially often weddings are played in the end of June: this is both the longest day, and a holiday of Sacred Johannes which gives additional day offs.
Unprepared visitors, having got on a celebration, can feel some confusion at the sight of “young”. The majority of Finnish newly married couples are quite mature people, and they are accompanied by a kind brood of kiddies. Now, for example, the middle age of the citizens officially marrying, makes 31 year for women and 34 for men. And though at such age people accept the decision to marry, apparently, after mature meditations, there are 24 thousand weddings a year in the country while the number of divorces makes 13-14 thousand. Sociologists explain that later the introduction of Finns into marriage is partly connected with fear of young men to lose their work.
For the same reasons they don’t risk to have children early, after all, all programs about the help to parents are anyhow related to their employment. Many prefer to live together, without taking up such obligations as law. Now the fifth part of the spouses, living in general housekeeping, stays in the so-called “civil marriage”. And after recent elections the institute of such marriage “is consecrated” from the highest tribunes.
The character of a wedding celebration has also changed. It has turned into “a holiday of the settled life”. People find the partner in life, check the feelings and compatibility in real life, then they have children, and after that they arrange wedding, as though confirming that their union has gone right. Therefore weddings in Finland all become more magnificent, more refined and noisy. There is a whole industry providing florid ceremonials, and special editions greedily describe them in detail, stopping on many thousand sums spent for celebrations.