A Trending Lifestyle : Cohabitation

In this essay, “The Cohabitation Epidemic,” by Neil Clark Warren, is talking about why many people decide to live their lives in cohabitation instead of getting married right away. Older generations would look at cohabiting as being something bad or even immoral. In this century, this epidemic is something common and, notwithstanding, normal. Over the years, the U.S. Census Bureau has kept up with how this lifestyle has evolved. In 1970, they had 1 million people that were “unmarried-partner households,” and that number rose to 3.2 million in 1990. In the year 2000, they had 11 million people living in those situations.

Tradition gives way to the new era. Saying “I do” before saying, “We found our new home,” is a thing of the past. Today, more and more couples are choosing cohabitation over marriage. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, between the year of 2006 and 2010, 48% of women ranging from age 15 to 44 years of age first lived with a man to whom they were not married (Grinberg). When compared to the numbers from 1995, which was 34% percent, the change in trend becomes obvious (Grinberg). There are many reasons why marriage is no longer the next big step for America’s unwedded couples.

Marriage a long-standing fundamental to functional society. Marriage is a perspective of what used to be socially the beginning of a nuclear family. A nuclear family consisting of a father, mother, and children. In the twentieth century it was considered proper in society to be married before having children. However, this is no longer the case in modern United States. What aspects are there that make our generation susceptible to cohabitation instead of marriage?

Many couples find themselves cohabiting today because it is cheaper and more convenient while others take it as a step forward in their committed relationships. Regardless of reason cohabiting has become a union of choice. In recent years cohabitation has transformed from an act of deviance to a norm in many societies. We will be focusing on how time and social change determines cohabitation and divorce.

Random Blogger discusses in her article living together before marriage is a very great idea for couples. She claims cohabitation helps to get know each other better than dating for a long time. The author’s main point is encouraging couples to live together before they get married. Her audience is people who can accesses her web cite and specially couples how didn’t get married yet.

Cohabitation is the norm in society today. When a couple decides to live together, it usually happens when a decision of I will spend one night and then

These constraints lead some cohabiting couples to marry, even though they would not have married under other circumstances. On the basis of this framework, Stanley, Rhoades, et al. (2006) argued that couples who are engaged prior to cohabitation, compared with those who are not, should report fewer problems and greater relationship stability following marriage, given that they already have made a major commitment to their partners. Several studies have provided evidence consistent with this hypothesis (Brown, 2004; Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009).

How marriage is what maintains a family and how cohabitation 's influence on couples is changing American society. He concludes that young couples today are choosing to cohabit and raise their children without any formalities that define a “legal” marriage. Wilson also describes the legal, financial, and social issues that are shaped by cohabitation, and their effects on the principles of marriage. A couple getting married makes a promise to stay together forever. This way each partner can afford to love the other because they made that promise. Another key argument is how marriage promotes better children. Although Wilson made a few strong points in his article, his claim against cohabitation fell short due to misleading the reader, including non-credible sources with no references, does not include opposing views or argument in favor of cohabitation, in addition to inserting his own political bias.

In other words, in the eyes of past generations, living together was no substitute for getting married. Today’s generation though sees cohabitation as a valid and even superior alternative to traditional marriage, since around a quarter of young adults aged 25 to 34 are currently living with a partner. Perhaps the shift from marriage to cohabitation reveals a difference in priorities or a move away from the previous generation’s religious beliefs. After all, most of the previous generation considered marriage a holy institution and therefore a requirement for a person of faith. So, we know the millennials think differently about marriage, but

Today, alternative long-term relationships are growing in times in heterosexual and LGBTQ relationships. Cohabitation is defined by “Recent Changes in Family Structure” as quote: “an intimate relationship that includes a common living place and which exists without the benefit of legal, cultural, or religious sanction.” Between 2005 and 2009 2/3 of relationships approximately were preceded by cohabitation (“Rise of Cohabitation” 2014.) This arrangement is less committed and therefore it takes longer to end, without much emotional devastation of a pricey divorces. Most marriages still begin with cohabitation. However, it is becoming less and less likely that cohabitation will end in a marriage. Marriage is still common in today’s culture, with approximately 60.25 million married couples in 2016 (“Number of married couples in the United States from 1960 to 2016 (in millions)” 2016.) This is evident why it is killing the nuclear family standard. People are having less desire to fully commit to a marriage in the first place. 1950 social standards would have never accepted an unmarried couple as a part of a normal life so only can a legal marriage constitutes the ideal set forth. Another, way to break the standard is remove some components.

Cohabitation, or living in mortal sin as some would call it, has sparked much argument in the 21st century. Cohabitation is a family structure in which two people who are not married live together long-term while in a sexually intimate relationship. Until recently our laws, and our values have not been supportive of anything other than the traditional marriage between a man, and a woman; who did not live together/have sex before marriage. Cohabitation, like almost all forms of alternative relationship, has become more widely accepted in the past two decades, and new demographics now take into account cohabitation levels among both hetero and homosexual couples! Despite what has been a major deinstitutionalization of marriage, cohabitation remains stigmatized among many Americans. As a matter of fact cohabitation is still technically illegal in the states of Florida, Michigan, and Mississippi!

Bruce Wydick argued that, “cohabitation may be narrowly defined as an intimate sexual union between two unmarried partners who share the same living quarter for a sustained period of time’’ (2). In other words, people who want to experience what being in a relationship truly is, tend to live under one roof and be more familiar with one-another. Couples are on the right path to set a committed relationship where the discussion about marriage is considered as the next step. However, many people doubt the fact as to live or not together with their future

Cohabitation, as the textbook explains, can have a different deffinition to those who are living this lifestyle. To about 10% of couples, cohabitation is viewed as a substitute for marriage. These people consider themselves married, but don't feel like a marriage certificate is necessarry. 46% of couples feel that cohabitation for them is a step toward marriage. 15% of couples are seeing what being married is like, and 29% of couples who participate in cohabitation view it as co-residential dating. Now, these different views will affect the outcome of whether these couples will get married or not. Those who view their cohabitation lifestyle as marriage are less likely to get married, because to them this is already a marriage. The other three have percentages over 60% to get married. Why? Because they're using cohabitation as a way to practice a lifestyle with someone. They give people the opportunity to feel a marriage out like “How am I going to feel about this person while I'm living with them? Are they going to be someone I can spend days with at a time?”. All those questions get answered through this cohabitation, so marriage is an easy choice.

For today’s young adults, the first generation to come of age during the divorce revolution, living together seems like a good way to achieve some of the benefits of marriage and avoid the risk of divorce. Couples who live together can share expenses and learn more about each other. They can find out if their partner has what it takes to be married. If things don’t work out, breaking up is easy to do. Cohabiting couples do not have to seek

Cohabitation is defined as a man and woman living in the same household and having sexual relations while not being married. There is relatively little data on health outcomes for people who have cohabitated, although there is some evidence that cohabitating couples have lower incomes (15% of cohabitating men are jobless while 8% of married men are jobless) and there may be negative academic effects for children of cohabitating mothers (Jay, 2012). Cohabitation rates are highest among those who have never married with just over a quarter of people surveyed reporting cohabitation before their first marriage (Jay, 2012). Of these, half reported that they expected their cohabitation to end in marriage; about one quarter to one third of cohabitations end either in marriage or dissolution of the relationship within 3 years (Jay, 2012). Further, cohabitation rates are highest for those who have not completed college, accounting for all but 12% of men and women reporting that they are living with their partners (Jay, 2012). Cohabitation and marriage are two significant decisions college students will make, but very little is known about what college students think about living together before marriage. Given the nearly 50% divorce rate in the United States (Jay, 2012), understanding how young adults view cohabitation as on option for life relationships needs further investigation.