With rents in many cities skyrocketing, men and women marrying later and a divorce rate for first-time marriages that hovers at about 45%, it's no wonder more American couples are deciding to shack up. There were an estimated 6,017,462 unmarried-partner households in the U.S. in 2006, according to the Census' latest research. This number includes 779,867 same-sex households. When the Census began measuring unmarried partners in 1996, there were only 2,858,000 opposite-sex couples. Though you likely know at least one cohabiting pair, unlike their married and single peers, unmarried couples are not an easy group to quantify. They cannot check...
