Wedding rings. Photo: Jeff Belmonte.

Ahead of Tu B’Av, the Jewish holiday of love which begins at sundown on Thursday, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics published data showing that the average age of marriage in the country was on the rise.

The average age of Israeli grooms getting married for the first time in 2016 was 27.5, the Hebrew news site Ynet reported on Wednesday, while for brides it was 25.1. In 1970, the averages were 25.0 for grooms and 21.7 for brides.

In 2016, a total of 52,809 couples got married in Israel within the framework of authorized religious institutions — 73% in Jewish weddings. There were also 9,031 weddings of Israeli couples abroad (many Israelis choose to marry outside the country to be free of the dictates of the state-funded religious bodies).

According to the data, the municipalities with the highest proportion of Jewish singles between the ages of 25-29 were Even Yehuda, Kiryat Tivon and Tel Aviv.