Posted on 08/19/2021 10:10:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
Marriage better supports individual and social wellbeing, and the government can and should reinforce its value through economic incentives. Cohabitation, not so much.
In the wake of the sexual revolution, the increasing popularity of cohabitation is an alarming trend. Cohabitation, the practice of a romantically involved couple living together while unmarried, has doubled since 1995, with 12 percent of adults under the age of 30 living with their sexual partners.
As cohabitation has become more accepted by Americans, there is also increasing support (from 65 percent of American adults, to be precise) for cohabitating couples receiving the same economic and tax benefits as married couples. The state should not provide the same economic incentives to cohabitors, however, because marriage is shown to be more beneficial to both individuals and civil society.
It is important to preface this discussion with the fact that people generally choose to marry for different reasons than they choose to cohabitate. Although both groups cite love and companionship as major reasons for either marriage or cohabitation, cohabitors are comparatively much more likely to move in with their partners for financial reasons or convenience. Additionally, less than half (44 percent) of cohabitors said living with their partner was a step towards marriage.
Social science also informs us that people, particularly women, who marry without cohabiting experience lower levels of relational disillusionment and higher levels of relational satisfaction. The same study found that cohabitors who did not have plans of marrying had the lowest quality of relationships, compared with married couples and cohabiting couples who planned to marry.
The Institute for Family Studies also found children whose biological parents are cohabitating are more than twice as likely to be exposed to domestic violence than are the children of married parents. The belief that cohabitation and marriage are largely comparable is simply untrue.
While there are other social and religious arguments about cohabitation, there are also significant economic factors that should be considered. According to an American Enterprise Institute study, higher marriage rates are “strongly associated with more economic growth, more economic mobility, less child poverty, and higher median family income” in the United States. The same study also observed that marriage fosters “a positive labor market orientation among young men” and reduces the prevalence of violent crime on the state level.
Another study by the Center for Human Resource Research at Ohio State University found that married individuals who stayed married had a net worth per person that was 93 percent higher than that of single individuals. (Conversely, divorced individuals reported wealth levels that were 77 percent lower than single individuals.) Additionally, married individuals’ wealth increased by 16 percent on average per year, while divorced individuals had a 14 percent increase on average and single individuals had only an eight percent increase.
The data clearly shows marriages are more economically fruitful on both individual and societal levels. So it is logical that the state would encourage and incentivize marriage and not cohabitation. One way the government incentivizes marriage is through various tax advantages. To offer the same economic advantages to cohabitors, who do not return the same economic benefit to society, would be imprudent.
In his book “On Ordered Liberty,” Samuel Gregg writes the “law has a pedagogical function. It helps to provide information about matters … that people need before making reasonable choices while simultaneously providing important room for free choice.” Essentially, the law has an educative function. By providing economic incentives for marriage, the law indirectly communicates that marriage is better for civil society than cohabitation, which is true.
Despite the changes in public perception about cohabitation, research shows it is inferior to marriage in both its social and economic functions. Because marriage better supports the happiness and prosperity of both individuals and civil society, government can and should reinforce its value through economic incentives. The practice of cohabitation should not be given the same treatment because it has been proven to be a less beneficial practice.
If only so many marriages...Christian marriages...didn’t fail.
In before the marriage haters and libertarians.
While I suspect what the article says is true, they are committing the correlation is causation fallacy.
divorce rates increased as traditional gender roles decreased ...
Get rid of no fault divorce laws and that problem would solve itself.
If only so many marriages...Christian marriages...didn’t fail.
The problem is it takes 2 people to build a good marriage, but only 1 to wreck it through abuse, cheating, overspending, etc.
LOL
Specifically you mean the immoral decadents.
“Get rid of no fault divorce laws and that problem would solve itself.”
Has anyone asked why 49 states should copy the idiocy of Califorina in this area. I’m sure most here remember the TV show Divorce Court - at least there you had to make a case if you wanted a divorce (and enrichment, or finding a real hunk, wasn’t considered grounds for divorce).
Might be right. And also the elevation of immorality, thanks to Pill and then all the other birth-control products.
Along with that, get rid of the minimum wage and a lot of things, including illegal aliens, will dry up.
America is finished.
The problem is that calling yourself a Christian doesn’t make you one. If one or both of the supposed “Christians” is thinking and living no different than the world, than the marriage has as little chance of success or failure as the most committed pagan.
So true. The plans of the left involve breaking down the family unit.
Modern feminism has destroyed marriage. Out entire Culture has turned TOXIC.
No one “fixes” things any more. First sign of trouble, everyone splits... Damn the kids, damn the history, damn anything good. Just bail out...
If you REALLY want to FIX something; rewrite the TAX Code to treat Separated spouses living in different homes to file as Head of Household, so both could take their mortgage interest as a deduction, and other such benefits as accrue to persons with dependent children.
As it is, the Tax Code does no such thing, and that gives a strong financial incentive for married couples in difficulty to skip Separation entirely, wherein they might remain married as they attempt to patch things up, and go straight to a Divorce, which fully unbinds the couple from each other, and immensely diminishes the drive to repair the relationship.
This is the crap we face letting the State get involved in the sacrament of Marriage, “compelling interest” or no.
If there’s going to be any “separation of church and state” let it be a bidirectional FIREWALL.
Just watching Judge Judy should teach people about how one messes up one’s life - and the lives of others including innocent children - by the obsession with sex. Immoral sex. Never mind shacking up. I miss Dr. Laura.
I’m sure we could all say a lot about this.
Many of us can point to elderly relatives such as grandparents married 50 years. Not too many baby boom or younger people will experience such long marriages.
Yes, we can also say some long term marriages aren’t super happy couples.
Maybe previous generations didn’t expect a marital partner to fulfill them or make their lives complete. Maybe they didn’t have expectations of personal fulfillment from a marital partner.
It takes 3 people to have a good marriage. Our Lord often gets forgotten. He is the most important person in the marriage.
No, it’s not feminism. It’s Dr. Spock and the Pill. Influential feminism came after that.
Yeah but the sex is better.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.