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 love of" - should be - His love for
I know you're just yanking my chain. And I also know you understand what I meant.
Congrats also to you. May you both stay happy, healthy and madly in love with each other
First rule of social policy, don't use extremely broken examples to make the rules. If the mother was drug addicted and disfunctional, I bet when they were together they had that in common. I don't know many drug users who don't share that with most of the people in their life. Clearly, there's more to the story, as always.
In fact, I have had a few friends that blamed getting married on the death of their relationship. Sometimes marriage changes people in a bad way.
No. Not working at your marriage changes you in a bad way. Refusing to grow up and realize that marriage is forever changes you in a bad way, but marriage itself never changes anyone. What you were before the ceremony you are after the ceremony, now you've just made public your decison to spend your life with your spouse.
Yes, but with only affection :~D
Your thesis doesn't hold water. In the past, where cohabitation was almost unheard of the divorce rate was in the single digits.
see 258
Actually they didn't. He was a good Christian man trying his best to be a good husband and father and she was just sort of along for the ride. From what I understand bad mother from the start. Got the drug addiction when she moved herself and the kids to a state 2000 miles away
That's the "Complex Cause" logical fallacy.
In any case, you still ignore my telling you that this was against the logic of only that sentence, not the intent of the whole article.
I am sure your family is indistinguishable from any other family on the outside. However, Would you say the social change that occured in the 70's and the dropping of commitment and the value of marriage has increased or decreased the measurables of a healthy society? If it has increased the good in the society how do you explain the overwhelming counter statistics to that statement?
As always in anonymous internet examples, I'll have to take your word for it.
But I could throw at you examples of many people who failed to stay married, but managed to work out reasonable accommodations for raising their kids best they could. I know fathers who have custody, mothers who had custody, and my own life, where I was welcome in either home any time, depending on what was happening. My parents divorced, and no court assigned me to one parent or the other, there was no schedule, we worked it out, including splitting my college expenses. Court ordered child support and calendars of visitation are only for those who refuse to be reasonable.
Not twisted and I believe it - because it has happened with me and coolbreeze more than once :)
You're free to 'look down on' anyone you wish. But you still think sex is something men 'do' and women 'submit to'. These are grownups John. Equal citizens. Both making choices and tryin' to live life best they can. And we have relationships entirely of our choosing. And neither one is a victim.
...and if I had, I'd be out by now...
FWIW, I never thought of murder. Suicide all the time, but murder? No.
My ex and I were 38. My first, her third. I thought the warning bells were wedding bells.
*sigh* Live, and hopefully, learn.
Yeah. These days I ask engaged people if they have a good relationship. They always say yes. Then I say Why ruin a perfectly good relationship by getting married?
Sad but too often true.
*ouch* I'm going to award you both ears and the tail for that one...
I doubt there will ever be a shortage of cads.
Instead of phrasing it in the negative way you did, I would politely suggest to women, believing as you do, that it is unwise for women to move in with men to protect themselves from the type of male you mention.
It is interesting to me, that the men you know who were so wronged by their wives in divorce situations are always total victims in your mind. You never blame them for their choice of women to begin with. But you are quick to blame women first in any situation.
The truth is in divorce situations, the percentage of men and women who are wronged, approaches parity.
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