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"Listen, saddles rule! Idiotic wild horses should just shut their mouths . . ." |
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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.
Myth #1 is obviously no myth. Many couples who cohabit are indeed "testing the waters" and many of them conclude from that test that they should not be together. That's what a "test" is; it doesn't require a specific outcome.
Myth #2 is just another way of saying that a "piece of paper" (i.e., a government marriage contract) is more coercive than the lack thereof, and therefore harder to get out of. Well, Duhh. For those couples who don't want to stay together, that's a feature, not a bug.
Myth #3 is a total straw man argument. Who cares whether cohabiting is more likely to lead to marriage? Only those people who think marriage is a superior condition and the ultimate goal. For those people who are not fixated on marriage, the percentage of cohabitees who eventually get married is immaterial.
Myth #4 is another straw man argument. Only those people who are extremely concerned with egalitarianism in relationships will care whether marriages are statistically more or less egalitarian than cohabitation. In any case, what do the statistics matter? For any particular couple, their only concern is whether their own relationship (whether married or cohabiting) meets their own expectations. Why should they care whether couples other than themselves are more or less likely to have a relationship imbalance?
In my own case, I cohabited with my partner for 28 years before we finally got married last summer. The only reason we got married was because government tax and social security policies are so discriminatory that we could no longer afford not to. But in 28 years of living together and raising our daughter we never had any problems with cohabiting. We would have prefered to continue cohabiting rather than marrying.
This particular member of our society doesn't think it sick at all.......because that is the type of marriage I have as well.
I know she's out there somewhere.
"Where one partner leaves or says they want a divorce the emotional fallout is horrible."
Probability of GAME OVER is much lower for married couples over the "shack ups." Once a "shack up" girl hits 32-36 (the last days of her "fertile years"), she has one or more of the following inner feelings:
1.) Zero self esteem
2.) 100 percent arrogance
3.) The continued path to intense depression and fear.
"Marriage is absolutely no guarantee that a couple will stay together."
True, but it has a greater probability of surviving a "shack up."
Juliet called it a fool's paradise. I think that says it all.
"Where one partner leaves or says they want a divorce the emotional fallout is horrible."
Probability of GAME OVER is much lower for married couples over the "shack ups." Once a "shack up" girl hits 32-36 (the last days of her "fertile years"), she has one or more of the following inner feelings:
1.) Zero self esteem
2.) 100 percent arrogance
3.) The continued path to intense depression and fear.
"Marriage is absolutely no guarantee that a couple will stay together."
True, but it has a greater probability of surviving a "shack up."
"But in 28 years of living together and raising our daughter we never had any problems with cohabiting."
You live in California, don't you?
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"Listen, saddles rule! Idiotic wild horses should just shut their mouths . . ." |
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Tell it to the kids, who need to be disabused of the conventional wisdom.
>>>This is a great piece, frankly attacking the nonsense so many people (including a bunch of FReepers) use to justify their bad behavior. >>>
What a judgemental, piece of crap statement. You the sanctimonious (sp) type that galls me to no end. YOU don't think someone else should live their life the way they see fit, so therefore it is "bad behavior".
Go live your perfect life and learn how to MYOB.
It just occurred to me:
A woman living in a "shack up" has no soul. PERIOD.
Yep. Couldn't have put it better.
Yes it does they also get sexually abused. You know I am very judgmental but my daughter had a sleep over birthday party with a child who's "parents" I did not know. I took her after debating since other girls that I knew would be with her. I found a single mother living with a man who is not the father of my daughter friend and little sister who is his daughter. Dysfunctional I must say and I also advised my daughter of this situation, in a nice way. And while I am babbling this women allowed her daughter and mine to take a walk to the candy store down the block. I was livid and advised my daughter that she never has permission to walk anywhere when she is over a friend’s house. What a b—ch, my kid could have been kidnapped; I don’t let my kid walk the streets especially in a strange town. Never again.
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Congratulations to you both!
Shacking up, aren't you?
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