Premarital Cohabitation And Premarital Marriage

Hey, Mom I just want you to know that Bob and I are going to live together. I know that you and dad do not agree with it, nonetheless, I am an adult and I am going to move into his place tomorrow. How can a parent see a child go through with a decision like this and know that he or she is making a wrong choice? Sometimes a young adult may make a choice that a parent does not like. As a result, a young adult has now plunged into cohabitation. Does it really matter if you cohabitate before marriage? In finding the answer to this problem, I have come across two articles which help explain the pros and the cons of the question, “Should couples cohabitate or get married?” The first article is Sliding Versus Deciding: Inertia, the Premarital Cohabitation Effect. When a couple has “dedication commitment” (Stanley, Rhoades, and Markmann, 503) with each other, cohabitation works for partners. It is likely your partner will stay in the relationship and want to work it out no matter what happens. The second article is The Verdict on Cohabitation vs. Marriage. While many people think that cohabiting is really the in thing with life today. Marriage trumps over cohabitation. Some marriage may not have the “happily ever after” it still has a better start to their life as a couple.

Cohabitating has its pros and cons some of the advantages of it are: Sense of well-being, Delayed marriage, Knowledge about self and partner, and Safety. The disadvantages are: Feeling used or tricked, Problems with parents, Economic disadvantages, Effects on children, and other issues.

Cohabitation is linked to several evidence that prove the effect of cohabitation is actually not favorable in a relationship. In contrary to the beliefs that cohabitation is beneficial in future marriage, premarital cohabitation cause instability in marriage instead. Stanley M. Scott, Kline Rhoades Galena, and Howard J.

According to Dalton Conley, cohabitation is the “living together in an intimate relationship without formal, legal, or religious sanctioning”(Conley 458). From this, one can assume that cohabitation happens primarily between two people that are in a relationship. When looking at cohabitation within the United States, it has become more evident that it is slowly increasing in popularity. During the early ages, cohabitation was considered very scandalous and was frowned upon, but as the years progress, more and more couples start living together. Whether it is to experience the lifestyle they would have living together as if they were married or living together in order to save money, more and more people are living with their significant other.

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.

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.

According to psychologytoday.com Cohabitation (i.e., living together in a sexual relationship before marriage) is an increasingly common trend in United States. Today, most heterosexual couples live together before marriage. A survey of over 12,000 heterosexual women aged 15-44 between 2006 and 2010 showed that approximately half (48 percent) of women cohabitate prior to their first marriage. This number is up from 34 percent in 1995.

Therefore, living together will ensure the couple whether or not they can get along in the future. Those people consider pre-cohabitation as an effective way to prepare themselves for being a family. According to Popenoe David, “in case the relationship goes sour, they can avoid the trouble, expense and emotional trauma” (4). It is a good idea to live together because if the couples have troubles they can just move out and continue with their separate lives without being obliged to undergo the different procedures of divorce. In the end, perhaps after living with various people, a person will finally find their appropriate partner for marriage and be happy. Popenoe points out that, “living together helps you see past romanticized notions and clue in to what marriage will really be like”(8). Accordingly, choosing reality as a primary factor to determine the result of cohabitation is a wise decision. People who cohabitate get a clue to see whether or not they will be able to share their lives with the partners they have chosen and what kind of disagreements might proceed within the relationship. Overall, the best opportunity of living up to one-another’s assumptions is to apprehend what they really are in advance and know what they care about.

Although marriage has been a central factor and gives meaning to human lives, the change in people’s lifestyles and behaviors through a long period of social development has resulted in alternate choices such as being single or nonmarital living. As a result, cohabitation has become more popular as a trendy life choice for young people. The majority of couples choose cohabitation as a precursor to marriage to gain a better understanding of each other. However, there are exceptions, such as where Thornton, Azinn, and Xie have noted: “In fact, the couple may simply slide or drift from single into the sharing of living quarters with little explicit discussion or decision-making. This sliding into cohabitation without

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).

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.

In todays’ world, with increased incidence of unsuccessful relationship or marriages, there are some people who want/prefer to live together before marriage so that they can understand each other and they don’t have to experience a painful divorce. In my point of view, this is another option/type of marriage. Because if the relationship won’t work successfully then they can separate their ways easily and live happily. By living together before marriage, they have time to know about each other's living style and behavior and their relation get even stronger than before but if it does not work then they can move ahead in their lives before taking a wrong step of living together for the whole life but sometimes living together is against to some family principles, ethics of society, religious point of view. Sometimes these types of relationships are very successful without any regret in life and on the other hand it comes out as an unsuccessful and worst relationship. But I think advantages are more powerful than disadvantages.

together in the early 1980's were between 25 and 34 years old, and an additional

In today’s society, adolescents have a positive opinion about cohabitation before marriage. The view of marriage as an institution has faded and cohabitation has taken a new part of this culture (Martin, Specter, Martin, & Martin, 2003). It has often been questioned whether or not premarital sexual activity causes marriages to be disrupted. According to Teachman, Premarital sex and cohabitation has not

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