Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 8, 1 August 1988 — Facts and Figures [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Facts and Figures

By Gordon Frazier

Hawaiian Marriages

In 1986, 1,594 women of Hawaiian ancestry and 1,536 Hawaiian men got married, according to the State Department of Health. While this data does not include such interesting facts as the number of maile leis draped around wedding couples, it does provide an interesting look at Hawaiian marriage patterns. In just under half of the Hawaiian marriages, both the bride and groom are Hawaiian. If a Ha'waiian is not marrying another Hawaiian, they are probably marrying a Caucasian. As seen in Figure 1, almost 23 percent of Hawaiians marry a Caucasian. Hawaiian men and women have similar patterns when chosing a mate. For example, 22 percent of Hawaiian men marry Caucasian women, while 23 percent of Hawaiian women chose to marry a Caucasian. Similarly, 3 percent of the brides of Hawaiian men are Chinese, while 2 percent of Hawaiian women select a Chinese husband.

Figure 2, Age When Married for Hawaiian Men and Figure 3, Age When Married for Haweiiian Women, illustrate the percentage of Hawaiian men and women marrying at different ages. The most popular age of marriage for Hawaiians is between 20 and 24 years. This is the age when 34 percent of Hawaiian men and 37 percent of Hawaiian women get married. The next most likely age for a Hawaiian to wed is between the ages of 25 and 29 years. As you ean see in Figures 2 and 3, Hawaiian women often marry at a younger age than Hawaiian men. Sixteen percent of Hawaiian women get married before the age of 20, though only 6 percent of Hawaiian men marry at that young an age.

For every three Hawaiians that got marrted in 1986, one Hawaiian got a divorce or annulment. There were 526 Hawaiian women and 559 Hawaiian men divorced that year. About half of the Hawaiians divorced were between 25 and 35 years old. Another fourth of the those divorced were 35 to 45 years old. Divorces are mueh rarer for older Hawaiians.