Countries most likely to say 'I do' to wedding night sex: how does SA compare?

Despite Daft Punk's famous lyric, it seems that many newlyweds aren't "up all night to get lucky". A recent campaign by Compare.bet surveyed 980 couples in 44 countries to find out if they consummated their marriage on the night they tied the knot.

They then created a map showing the 10 countries most likely to consummate their marriage on their wedding night, and the 10 countries who didn't find the time to make it "official".

DRUM ROLL ... THE RESULTS

The newlyweds most interested in getting jiggy straight after they tied the knot were from Finland, with a whopping 89% saying they consummated their marriage on their wedding night. Perhaps it's the crisp weather that encourages the Fins to get out of the party and into each other. Nothing like a bit of body heat on the first night.

Following closely behind Finland was Egypt, with 88% of couples saying they had sex on their first night being married, whilst 12% didn't. That figure discounts the cold weather argument and suggests that maybe it's the heat that makes couples want to get their clothes off.

In third place were, unsurprisingly, the hot-blooded Brazilians, with 87% doing the deed on their first night as husband and wife.

In SA, we aren't too far off the mark, with 82% of married couples sealing the deal on the first night. That percentage puts us firmly in the bright pink block of the map, which means we are in the top 10 countries surveyed whose married couples get it on after the nuptials. In fact, we sneak in at No 9.

Japan and Russia had the second- and third-lowest percentage of consummating couples.

But what's up with the Australians, who are the lowest on the list of surveyed countries when it comes to couples checking out the goods on the first night of their lives together?

Only 36% of the couples surveyed said they'd done it on the first night, while a whopping 64% prolonged their gratification.

WHAT COULD BE THE ISSUES?

Well, weddings can be pretty exhausting. As romantic as they are in theory, the reality is that all the months of planning and then being on your feet the whole day and dancing into the night can totally exhaust new partners, no matter how sexy they find each other.

It's likely that celebratory drinks are also involved in the festivities in some countries and too much alcohol can also be a contributing factor in delaying sexual gratification for another day.

Other reasons could include wanting to wait for the perfect moment, being too emotional, wanting to continue partying with friends, and couples travelling for their honeymoon.

As South Africans, though, it feels really good to be above both Australia and New Zealand (ranking at No 38) in another kind of (indoor) sport we take very seriously.

• Methodology: Compare.bet gathered a list of 44 countries with the highest populations. They then surveyed 980 couples across all 44 countries. From this data, they were able to see which countries had the highest and lowest percentages of couples that consummated their marriage on their first night as husband and wife. This data was then used to create the map above.