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Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children
LifeSiteNews ^ | 10/9/07 | A. Patrick Schneider II

Posted on 10/09/2007 3:56:14 PM PDT by wagglebee

October 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A. Patrick Schneider II, M.D., M.P.H., who holds boards in family and geriatric medicine and who received a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University, is in private practice in Lexington, Kentucky.

"Cohabitation -- it's training for divorce." -- Chuck Colson (1995)
1.  Cohabitation is growing: 35 to 40 years ago cohabitation was rare; it was socially taboo. Growth by decade was: 1960s (up 19 percent), 1970s (up 204 percent), 1980s (up 80 percent), 1990s (up 66 percent), but up only 7.7 percent between 2000 and 2004. All told, cohabitation is up eleven-fold (U.S. Census Bureau, "Unmarried-Couple Households, by Presence of Children: 1960 to Present," Table UC-1, June 12, 2003).

2.  Relationships are unstable: One-sixth of cohabiting couples stay together for only three years; one in ten survives five or more years (Bennett, W.J., The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family, 2001).

3.  Greater risk of divorce: The rate of divorce among those who cohabit prior to marriage is nearly double (39 percent vs. 21 percent) that of couples who marry without prior cohabitation (ibid.).

4.  Women suffer disproportionately: Cohabiting women often end up with the responsibilities of marriage -- particularly when it comes to caring for children -- without the legal protection (ibid.), while contributing more than 70 percent of the relationship's income (Crouse, J.C., "Cohabitation: Consequences for Mothers and Children," presentation at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 11-14, 2004, U.N. Tenth Anniversary of the International Year of the Family).

5.  Greater risk of STD: Men in cohabiting relationships are four times more likely to be unfaithful than husbands (ibid.). In 1960 there were only three STDs; now there are two dozen that are incurable. Cases of STD have tripled in the past six years. The rate of STD among cohabiting couples is six times higher than among married women (Crouse, J.C., Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century, 2000).

6.  Greater risk of substance abuse and psychiatric problems: A UCLA survey of 130 published studies found that marriages preceded by cohabitation were more prone to drug and alcohol problems (Coombs, R.H., "Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review," Family Relations, Jan. 1991). Depression is three times more likely in cohabiting couples than among married couples (Robbins, L., Rieger, D., Psychiatric Disorders in America, 1990).

7.  Higher poverty rates: Cohabitors who never marry have 78 percent less wealth than the continuously married; cohabitors who have been divorced or widowed once have 68 percent less wealth (Cohabitation Facts website).

8.  Children suffer: The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is five fold greater than the rate among children in married-couple households (Bennett, op. cit.). Compared to children of married biological parents, children age 12-17 with cohabiting parents are six times more likely to exhibit emotional and behavioral problems (Booth, A., Crouter, A.C., eds., Just Living Together: Implications of Cohabitation on Families, Children and Social Policy, 2002). Likewise, adolescents from cohabiting households are 122 percent more likely to be expelled from school and 90 percent more likely to have a low GPA (Manning, W.D., Lamb, K.A., "Adolescent Well-Being in Cohabiting, Married and Single-Parent Families," Journal of Marriage and Family, Nov. 2003). Children find themselves without grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins; the family tree is pruned (Bennett, op. cit.).

9.  Society pays: The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with two million souls in federal and state prisons and local jails. In 1980 the figure was just over 500,000 (Bennett, op. cit.). Seventy percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions are from fatherless homes (Drake, T., "The Father Factor: Crime on Increase in ‘Dad Free' Zones," National Catholic Register, Jan. 2007). Three-fourths of children involved in criminal activity were from cohabiting households (Crouse, op. cit.).

10.  Cohabitation breeds abuse, violence, and murder: Abuse of children: Rates of serious abuse are lowest in intact families; six times higher in step­families; 14 times higher in always-single-mother families; 20 times higher in cohabiting biological-parent families; and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend who is not the biological father (Crouse, op. cit.). Abuse of women: Compared to a married woman, a cohabiting woman is three times more likely to experience physical aggression (Salari, S.M., Baldwin, B.M., "Verbal, Physical, and Injurious Aggression Among Intimate Couples Over Time," Journal of Family Issues, May 2002), and nine times more likely to be murdered (Shackelford, T.K., "Cohabitation, Marriage, and Murder: Woman-Killing by Male Romantic Partners," Aggressive Behavior, vol. 27, 2001). This data is consistent with similar data on children.

Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children. It is a deadly toxin to marriage, family, and culture. With great insight and wisdom Pope Benedict XVI has recently written in Sacramentum Caritatis (March 13, 2007) that among the four "fundamental values" that are "not negotiable," second only to respect for human life is "the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman."
________________________________________________

This article first appeared in the September 2007 issue of the New Oxford Review, and is reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2007 New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, U.S.A., http://www.newoxfordreview.org.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cohabitation; divorce; marriage; moralabsolutes
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And yet the left view marriage as "outmoded" and "archaic" for everyone except homosexuals.
1 posted on 10/09/2007 3:56:15 PM PDT by wagglebee
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To: 230FMJ; 49th; 50mm; 69ConvertibleFirebird; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; ..
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

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[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


2 posted on 10/09/2007 3:56:40 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

BTTT.


3 posted on 10/09/2007 3:57:39 PM PDT by MaryFromMichigan
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To: wagglebee

“Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children”

The perfect combination for unmitigated leftist support of the practice.


4 posted on 10/09/2007 3:59:12 PM PDT by vetsvette (Bring Him Back)
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To: wagglebee

“Mommies” allowing their boyfriends to move in are begging for their children to be abused.


5 posted on 10/09/2007 3:59:13 PM PDT by Mrs.Z
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To: wagglebee
Many of the females with children are married to the government.
It provides housing, food and other creature comforts but no sex.
The shack up provides sex but the only sex the government provides is to F the tax payers.
6 posted on 10/09/2007 4:06:24 PM PDT by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (Remember the Alamo, Goliad and WACO, It is Time for a new San Jacinto)
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To: wagglebee

I lived with my wife for five years before we were married. Are you trying to tell me our relationship is doomed?


7 posted on 10/09/2007 4:07:22 PM PDT by Dave Elias
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To: Mrs.Z

‘“Mommies” allowing their boyfriends to move in are begging for their children to be abused.’

worse than that in our area...they’re killing them....often beating them to death for crying.


8 posted on 10/09/2007 4:08:21 PM PDT by STONEWALLS
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To: wagglebee

Mrs. steveo cohablitated with some guy over 40 years ago. So we got married and still are. I got lucky I guess, she got the better part of the deal... me.


9 posted on 10/09/2007 4:09:16 PM PDT by steveo (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.)
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To: steveo

LOL!


10 posted on 10/09/2007 4:11:53 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

bump


11 posted on 10/09/2007 4:12:13 PM PDT by VOA
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To: wagglebee

What’s the difference if men and women live by themselves and have people come over, engage in dating, and having sex? The root cause of the effects of cohabitation is economics, not morals.


12 posted on 10/09/2007 4:12:47 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Congratulations Brett Favre! NFL's all-time touchdown leader)
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To: Dave Elias

If you are so am I- my husband and I lived together over a year before we married. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. No way was I going to marry someone before I knew what day to day life was like with him.

But we did wait approx 2 weeks after we got married to get pregnant.


13 posted on 10/09/2007 4:17:21 PM PDT by bigred41
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To: steveo; Extremely Extreme Extremist; bigred41
I think I once read this in... what was it? Oh yeah- The Journal of Ivy League Psychiatrists Are Suddenly Great.

UCLA et al., the ultimate defenders of gay-everything, and studies showing how conservatives are clinically paranoid.

I do love the source for #7 though: "Cohabitation Facts website"

No bias there.

14 posted on 10/09/2007 4:30:28 PM PDT by SteveMcKing
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To: wagglebee

The environmentalists must be most upset if the couples split. Twice the housing, twice the carbon footprint, twice the sprawl,......


15 posted on 10/09/2007 4:35:29 PM PDT by expatpat
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

16 posted on 10/09/2007 4:39:01 PM PDT by RightWhale (50 years later we're still sitting on the ground)
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To: Dave Elias

cohab means you have kids but you never get married and you are never tied to anyone.


17 posted on 10/09/2007 4:41:53 PM PDT by ari-freedom (I am for traditional moral values, a strong national defense, and free markets.)
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To: STONEWALLS
‘“Mommies” allowing their boyfriends to move in are begging for their children to be abused.’

worse than that in our area...they’re killing them....often beating them to death for crying.

I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that in comparison to the number of couples co-habitating, the number of cases in which a boyfriend beats a child to death is pretty close to statistically undetectable.

18 posted on 10/09/2007 4:47:37 PM PDT by MichiganMan (Last year, this consumer spent over $1,700 on Linux compatible hardware.)
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To: wagglebee

This was stated long ago in my socioloy class.


19 posted on 10/09/2007 4:49:12 PM PDT by Dante3
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To: Dave Elias
I lived with my wife for five years before we were married. Are you trying to tell me our relationship is doomed?

Dittoes. My husband and I lived together for around three years before marrying, and next month will be our 21st anniversary. It's better now than it's ever been despite the absolute worst things that have happened to us and our children. When we shacked up we weren't even thinking "I'm out of here if it goes bad" - it was more like "THIS is the one I want to be with."

That said, I do believe that many shack-up situations do have that fair weather mentality built into it.

20 posted on 10/09/2007 4:50:07 PM PDT by Lizavetta ( Politicians: When they're speaking, they're lying - when they're not speaking, they're stealing.)
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