Replies

I assume you have a study which proves that most premarital sex takes place outside of cohabitation?

This is very obviously the case if you look at the relative levels of promiscuity (however that is defined) in the general population. Most guys do not move in with the girls the sleep with in my experience; most young guys will tell you that has more costs than benefits. Most times, I see cohabitation happen for long-term monogamous relationships (which may or may not end up in marriage). It is kind of like the halfway house to marriage for many people.

That said, the cohabitation/marriage statistics are probably meaningless due to self-selecting populations. The types of people who choose not to co-habitate almost certainly have different statistical behaviors in marriage as well, so you are essentially looking at two different populations in parallel, not an average statistical population that has been normalized for personal belief systems. Many of the same people who don't believe in cohabitation also don't believe in divorce, or believe in divorce only in the most extreme circumstances. Correlation is not causation, and the above fact skews the results.