Nov 12th 2011 | SEOUL | from the print edition
Research at last begins to cast some light on the extent, causes and consequences of cross-border marriages
IF SHAKIRA, a Colombian pop star, marries her boyfriend, the Spanish national footballer Gerard Piqué, the only unusual things about it would be that she is even more famous than he is and ten years older. Otherwise, theirs would be just a celebrity example of one of the world’s biggest social trends: the rise of international marriages—that is, involving couples of different nationalities.
