Posted on 03/01/2006 7:09:06 AM PST by ZGuy
In the United States, living together instead of marrying has become the norm for couples -- half of young adults aged 20-40 are cohabiting instead of getting married. Cohabitation has increased nearly 1,000% since 1980, and the marriage rate has dropped more than 40% since 1960.
Some see substituting living together for marriage as an insignificant shift in family “structure.” Those who are better informed realize that the shift has disastrous ramifications for the individuals involved, as well as for society and public policy.
The faulty reasoning leading young adults to make such a poor choice must be exposed. Here are four myths surrounding the shift.
Myth No. 1: Living Together Is a Good Way to “Test the Water”
Many couples say that they want to live together to see if they are compatible, not realizing that cohabitation is more a preparation for divorce than a way to strengthen the likelihood of a successful marriage -- the divorce rates of women who cohabit are nearly 80% higher than those who do not. In fact, studies indicate that cohabiting couples have lower marital quality and increased risk of divorce. Further, cohabiting relationships tend to be fragile and relatively short in duration; less than half of cohabiting relationships last five or more years. Typically, they last about 18 months.
Myth No. 2: Couples Don’t Really Need That “Piece of Paper”
A major problem with cohabitation is that it is a tentative arrangement that lacks stability; no one can depend upon the relationship -- not the partners, not the children, not the community, nor the society. Such relationships contribute little to those inside and certainly little to those outside the arrangement. Sometimes couples choose to live together as a substitute for marriage, indicating that, in case the relationship goes sour, they can avoid the trouble, expense and emotional trauma of a divorce. With such a weak bond between the two parties, there is little likelihood that they will work through their problems or that they will maintain the relationship under pressure.
Myth No. 3: Cohabiting Relationships Usually Lead to Marriage
During the 1970s, about 60% of cohabiting couples married each other within three years, but this proportion has since declined to less than 40%. While women today still tend to expect that “cohabitation will lead to marriage,” numerous studies of college students have found that men typically cohabit simply because it is “convenient.” In fact, there is general agreement among scholars that living together before marriage puts women at a distinct disadvantage in terms of “power.” A college professor described a survey that he conducted over a period of years in his marriage classes. He asked guys who were living with a girl, point blank, “Are you going to marry the girl that you’re living with?” The overwhelming response, he reports, was “NO!” When he asked the girls if they were going to marry the guy they were living with, their response was, “Oh, yes; we love each other and we are learning how to be together.”
Myth No. 4: Cohabiting Relationships Are More Egalitarian Than Marriage
It is common knowledge that women and children suffer more poverty after a cohabiting relationship breaks up, but it’s not so well understood that there is typically an economic imbalance in favor of the man within such relationships, too. While couples who live together say that they plan to share expenses equally, more often than not the women support the men. Studies show that women typically contribute more than 70% of the income in a cohabiting relationship. Likewise, the women tend to do more of the cleaning, cooking and laundry. If they are students, as is often the case, and facing economic or time constraints that require a reduction in class load, it is almost invariably the woman, not the man, who drops a class.
So What’s the Conclusion?
A mass of sociological evidence shows that cohabitation is an inferior alternative to the married, intact, two-parent, husband-and-wife family. Increasingly, the myths of living together without marriage are like a mirror shattered by the force of the facts that expose the reality of cohabitation.
Dr. Crouse is senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute.
The dogmatic mindset is remarkable in its denseness.
Most reasonable people will easily understand that I was referring to the process, not the underlying intention or commitment.
Your quoting scripture just lost me.
I am happy that the discussion is over.
He shoots! He SCORES! The crowd goes wild!!!
A lot of women are desparate for acceptance.
Yup. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
That is sooo nice!
IF I wanted to get married my partner would marry me but we discussed it years ago and decided its not for either of us. Even now we don't want it.
Thank God my ex was too stupid to move in with her boyfriend when we were married only nine years. Divorce was final 8 days before (what would of been) our tenth anniversary.
Why stop at four? I might have been convinced that this person knows my life better than me if she could have come up with at least 6 more straw men.
The author said the average length of cohabitation is 18 months. If they'd been married instead of cohabitating, that would mean they'd be divorced instead of simply going their own ways. Even though the odds of married people splitting is less than those cohabitating, that still means in those 18 months there would be divorces instead of simple splits.
Wow, that's what I call conceit and arrogance! All in one sentence too!
I don't know about other states, but California will pay for the abortion whether she's single, married, rich, or poor.
How old is your daughter? Your account of the sleepover is pretty meaningless without that important tidbit.
Ah yes, the "marriage won't be saved until it costs less to divorce" argument. Can you ~really~ get that house of cards to stand up?
The truth is, marriage ~should~ be expensive to divorce from when kids are involved. The truth is, while I sympathize with the cost of child support, most men would not choose to reverse roles with the mother. They bitch, but they'd rather write checks than deal with getting kids dressed and off to day care before work. They complain, but it's nice only to have the kids on weekends when it's play time. People whine about bad divorces, but they still do it. I can only conclude that something about the divorce looked better than the alternative.
And such are the natural prey of some men.
She will be 11 this month.
The fact that men and women are wired, and therefore think so differently makes finding a like-minded woman very hard. Then add the truck load of excrement that our current educational system & society crams into the heads of boys and girls and I would say it is darn near impossible. Men a women were designed to complement and complete each other. But actually having that happen is a process that requires levels of self awareness and selflessness from both parties such that it is nearly as rare as a lottery win.
>>>so we made a 'family quilt' with everyone's first and middle name embroidered in the quilt. It hangs on our wall.
That is sooo nice!>>>
Thank you!! I thought so too and it solved the being the "Blank" family. We are a family, just have different last names.
We were not Christians when we moved in together. Had we both been, I don't think we would have lived together. I literally had nowhere else to go, but I would have figured something out.
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