Surge in couples taking up marriage prep courses
More couples in Singapore are enrolling in marriage education courses. Providers of such courses say couples taking up their courses surged by 10-15 percent in each of the last two years. One of them, Touch Community Services, says it saw 10-15 percent increases each year in 2009 and in 2010, compared to annual increases of 3-5 percent in previous years.
The providers say the increase is due to couples being more aware that they should not wait till issues arise to seek help. And to get more on board, Marriage Central will stage its first ever comedy show “Marriage is no Laughing Matter” starring real life comedy couple Lim Kay Siu and Neo Swee Lin.
1,900 tickets for its five shows were sold out within three days after sales began on 23 February. Lim Kay Siu said: “It’s going to be a very light-hearted funny look at this thing called marriage, this journey that couples take together, the highlights and the pitfalls. We take a nice comedic, like fun musical look at it. So I think it will be very entertaining but you go home thinking about all these things.”
It seems like the institution of marriage is going through a state of emergency in more ways than one these days!