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."
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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.
Thank you for your kind words.
BS statistic.
Those who fornicate prior to marriage break up more often than those who have sex after marriage.
That’s an admitedly crass way to put it, but the truth is that those who live together prior to marriage have more relational problems than those who wait to live together and have sex until they express their marriage commitment at the altar. There are exceptions, of course....
Ever heard of a bell curve? You are the exception. Apparently.
I never hurt anyone though. So we're cool, right?
And if I had a kid, I'd be cool with the example I set for him because while I was pretty sure I could drive in that condition, well, if he *thinks* he can, too, then, hell, who am I to criticize.
So, In other words, Dave Elias, why must you be so obtuse?
We must proclaim this truth, because, ironically enough, fear of divorce is the reason why most couples cohabitate.
You mean like being a collecting "single mom" who actually has a live-in boyfriend who works under the table? Yes, that's certainly one cause of cohabitation. But among the middle class, cohabitation is very often seen as a "trial marriage." I've seen that among my peers.
But dramatically higher than is the case with natural fathers. The great evil associated with live-in boyfriends which is far more common is "incest." Irreplaceable God-given graces come with natural parenthood.
Yep!
Even here at FR we are overrun with people who are totally confused as to what a conservative is as evidenced by the overwhelming number of libertarians and outright liberals who seem to think they belong here because they don't vote for the 'Rats.
The average libertarian today is a very liberal anarchist who doesn't want to pay taxes. There's nothing conservative about this, it's simply motivated by selfish greed. They have confused "limited government" with zero government.
Then there are the FRiberals who really don't know what they believe but they know they don't like the Clintons and they have decided that conservatives have "had their foot on the neck of the GOP for too long." They want to elect politicians who look, act and sound just like 'Rats, but have an "R" after their name.
LMAO!
Great analogy!
That's really the point.
What is a marriage? A marriage is a lifetime commitment between a man and woman for both the begetting and raising of children, and the mutual care of the spouses. Even in sacramental marriages, it is the couple that confers the sacrament, rather than the priest or minister, who acts only as a witness for the church/Church.
If a couple cohabitates with the intention of remaining together for life, the couple would have entered into a natural marriage in everything but name.
If a couple cohabitates or even participates in a wedding ceremony with the intention of separating in the event of difficulties, then the couple has not entered into a marriage.
I'm calling BS. We've known of 6 STD's for at least 100 years: Syphilis, gonorrhea, chancroid, granuloma inguinale, lymphogranuloma venereum, and pediculosis.
I only know of two STDs that are incurable - HIV and Herpes; and they're both treatable.
Could you please name just two other allegedly "incurable" STD's?
I've found that you can lead a pothead libertarian to water, but you can't make him drink.
He's telling you that if you manage to stay together, you're beating the odds. "X probability" of some event occurring means (by definition) "1-X" probability of it not occurring.
Consider the "game" of Russian Roulette. Assuming a standard six-shot revolver and one chamber loaded, there's a 0.17 probability of decorating the wall with your brains when you pull the trigger and 0.83 probability of survival.
The pothead libertarians generally like to keep the discussions focused on pot because they are uncomfortable discussing their porn and prostitution habits.
Literally, yes. Practically, no. Chaste cohabitors represent .001% of the cohabiting population (my statistics). IOW, they're statistically insignificant.
But cohabitation is a public scandal. And that's reason enough not to engage in it.
3) Does it still count if it’s a relatively short period of time (day before marraige, one week after engagement)?
Yes, because cohabitation is a public scandal. One doesn't have to be a Christian to understand the importance of bad example.
I’m confused, are you disputing the idea that cohabitation is bad or are you simply questioning the statistics of curable vs. incurable STDs and when they first appeared?
I’m disputing the statement on STD’s. I have no opinion on cohabitation. When BS facts are used to advance a political or religious agenda, it usually makes the entire article suspect in my experience.
I know for a fact that if you even think about bumping uglies prior to marriage, your genitals will transform into something that looks like chewed gum and fall off.
In the old days, people did not have sex like they do today. If they had sex at all, it was by accident and they certainly didn’t enjoy it.
Hepatitis B and HPV are both incurable, though there are some effective treatments and vaccines.
And who would enforce a broken contract? A contractor hired to arbitrate this broken contract? And who would arbitrate that broken contract? And so on, ad infinitum.
But the real, central, glaring error of libertarianism is the libertarian notion of rights. If rights are unalienable then they must be eternal. An eternal lawgiver (God) is the only possible source of eternal rights.
It is logically impossible for God to will evil. Therefore, no one possesses an absolute right to do evil. No one enjoys an absolute right to intoxication, fornication, adultery, blasphemy, etc. Man may, for prudential reasons, be permitted by the State/society to participate in these evils without State imposed punishment, but he never enjoys a God-given right to do evil.
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