Christian Message Boards: The Risks of Cohabitation

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Posted by Kindgo (Member # 2) on :

Katherine Kersten: The risks of cohabitation

Published Jul 17, 2002

Everyone knows that American family structure is changing. In recent decades, large increases in divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing have dramatically altered the social landscape. But a related social change has received little attention. That's the extraordinary rise in cohabitation, in which an unmarried man and woman share a household as sexual partners.

Since 1960, cohabitation has increased by over 1,000 percent. Today, about a quarter of unmarried women between 25 and 39 are living with a male partner, and about half report having done so at some time...

... But there's growing evidence that cohabitation is not an effective way to prepare for marriage, and actually raises the risk of divorce. In June, the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University released a review of recent research on the issue. The report is entitled "Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation Before Marriage" (<http://marriage.rutgers.edu)>.

Among the report's findings is this: Couples who cohabit before marriage are much more likely to divorce after marriage than those who don't... Cohabiting couples who don't marry also break up at a rate that greatly exceeds the nation's divorce rate.

It's not hard to see why. Compared with married couples, cohabiting couples report lower levels of happiness, lower levels of sexual exclusivity and poorer relationships with parents.

Annual rates of depression among cohabitors are more than three times higher than among married couples. By almost every measure, married couples are better off than cohabitors: On average, they live longer, have better physical and mental health, and are more productive in the labor force.

Cohabitation also poses special risks to women and children...

Female cohabitors are victims of domestic violence far more often than married women, and children in unmarried households are at much greater risk for physical and sexual abuse than those in intact families. Indeed, the most unsafe of all family environments is that in which the mother is living with someone other than her children's biological father.

What explains these differences between married and cohabiting couples? Partly, it's ``selection effect'': As a group, people who choose to cohabit differ in certain ways from those who don't. On average, for example, cohabitors are less religious and have lower incomes.

In addition, however, the act of cohabitation seems to change people's attitudes toward marriage in ways that make a stable marriage less likely. Cohabitation is governed by an ethic of low commitment. As a result, cohabiting couples are less likely than married couples to sacrifice for each other, or to develop vital skills of communication and conflict resolution.

For contemporary Americans, cohabitation's fundamental attraction is its embrace of a hallmark quality of our age: self-absorption. By definition, cohabitation is more about ``me'' than ``we.'' Each partner is free to leave the moment he or she no longer feels happy or fulfilled.

A cohabiting couple do not promise to stand by one another ``for richer, for poorer'' or ``in sickness and in health.'' On the contrary, cohabitation's great attraction is that it preserves the ability to walk out on a partner when times get tough, without legal or social penalty.

... marriage remains the most stable of all family forms...

_ Katherine Kersten is a senior fellow of the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis.

Read the complete article at:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3064062.html

Posted by Waterdog (Member # 24) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kindgo:
... But there's growing evidence that cohabitation is not an effective way to prepare for marriage, and actually raises the risk of divorce. ...much more likely to divorce after marriage than those who don't... By almost every measure,... On average,... ...far more often ...much greater risk... As a group,... On average,... ...less likely. ...less likely... ...is more about...A cohabiting couple...

It sure is great to not be average or normal. [Big Grin]

I took 4 different statistics classes in college, so I know that "more likely," "greater risk," and "on average" don't include everyone in the subject group, but I just have to mention that my husband and I lived together for 4 months before we married. We knew each other in high school and were friendly, but never dated, then lost touch for 2 years when we went to separate universities. When we met back up, we started dating, but 2 months later, his fall semester started, so he left for college again, which was 200 miles away from home. Six months after we started dating we became engaged. We eventually set our wedding date for a day 2 years and 2 weeks after we became engaged. With only 4 months left 'till the wedding, I decided to move in with him in the town where his school was. Not only would that make wedding planning easier, we would finally be together after a 2 1/2 year courtship in which we were only ever in the same town for 3 months at a time. We have never broken up, we got married as planned, and here we are now 4 1/2 years later looking forward with great anticipation to our small upcoming 5 year milestone and our big 50 year one. We are both very anti-divorce (his parents are still married, mine aren't) and can't imagine not being together forever. [Kiss]