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Living Together: Good or Evil

Decent Essays

The National Marriage Project (2000) is educating young men and women on the perils of living together, prior to marriage, in their book “Should We Live Together.” The co-directors are both Ph.D.’s, one a behavioral sciences dean at Rutgers and the other an author and social critic who writes extensively on issues of marriage, family and child wellbeing. The book focuses on the risks of cohabitating before marriage, which is not only unsafe, unprofitable, but also does not increase the chance of a marriage lasting. Not surprisingly, very few understand all these undesirable factors that so many young men and women face when they decide to attempt cohabiting. The history of cohabitation was formed by the lower class who could not afford to live independently. By combining their incomes they could have support while still maintaining a sense of autonomy. This slowly found its way into the young middle class. Cohabitation by definition is a relatively new acceptable form of relationship, in 1970 it was illegal in all states. Even to this day cohabitation is not widely accepted as a form of legal relationships. “By simple definition, living together-or unmarried cohabitation---is the status of couples who are sexual partners, not married to each other, and sharing a household” (Popenoe & Whitehead, p. 3). This simple definition directly correlates to almost 5 million people. While this number might not be that significant Popenoe and Whitehead (2001) report that “66% of high

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