I never have hopped into the sack with whatever happened to be available that night. However, dating is an artificial environment--you don't see a real person when you meet for 'chocolate malts and a picture show.'
If I'm going to make a commitment for life, I want to know who I am making it with and what exactly I am getting into. I want to see how she handles real-life problems like leaky sinks and car breakdowns and what happens if she sees me with a woman she doesn't know. I want to know if she has strange obsessions, bitter hates, or problems with my personal habits or likes and dislikes.
I think we can all agree that people are not always who they say they are. It's easy to fake being someone else for a few hours. Co-habitation forces the honesty you can't get during dating.
As far as the sex thing goes--sorry, the 40s are over. If a woman doesn't put out, another woman will.
Talk about a lame, pathetic response. Your view of life appears to be a sexual one. Marriage is not about sex. It is about spending the life with someone you love. It's about learning new things, learning from mistakes, etc. Your talk of cohabitation is inherently flawed, because it takes out the mystery of marriage, not to mention overshadows the true feelings of courtship and dating by allowing oneself to get wrapped up in lust. I'm sorry, but you know that cohabitation places an individual in a temptacious setting, and pre-marital sex is one of the main reasons for divorce.
If cohabitation is so great, why do a strong majority of individuals who cohabitate end up getting divorced? On the other hand, why do a minority of individuals who do not cohabitate, nor have premarital relations, get divorced?