The Pros And Cons Of Cohabitation Before Marriage

Marriage, as once seen as a cultural and normative step in life, is now not so trending. As Hewitt and Baxter (2011) state that cohabitation has become more a traditional pathway to marriage, if not completely skipping the whole idea of it. As the rates of marriage have gone down, consequently, the rates of divorce and separation have increased. Due to these results, people rely on the idea of “try before you buy”. This means that they live together like a married couple, cohabitating, without any legal union in order to see their compatibility and if their relationship will last in the long run when they spend a lot of time together sharing a dwelling and expenses. Cohabitation rates have doubled over the last decade, as it has become a social part of relationships and is seen a lot, especially in the American culture (Haung & Smoch, 2011).

Back then, I thought that didn’t make any sense and wouldn’t you want to be with them to see if you can live with them? However, reading Does Cohabitation Result in Marriages That Last, I was very interested in the cohabitation effect. I didn’t think that because of all the cohabitation experiences, it would make marriage low and divorce high. The cause of it being cohabitants are willing to violate social norms. That makes sense because in my mind it’s like when you give in too easy and you just don’t want it anymore, but if you restrain yourself, you want to keep going for it. I’m not sure if this would be a good example or an example at all, but sort of like sex before marriage. However, some researchers also said that it’s not cohabitation, but the age at which you live together which I believe could also be a factor because sometimes people are too quick and live in the moment and don’t really think about it. Overall, marriage is a huge commitment that you have to think

What is cohabitation? According to the Oxford Dictionary, cohabitation means a couple ‘live together and having a sexual relationship without being married’ (n.d). In1960 between 2000, the rate of cohabitation has increased to 88% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).Nowadays, more and more people choose to live together before marriage because it is a good way to test the stability of couples’ relationships (Rhoades et al., 2009a).10% of couples who live together before marriage will cohabitate for at least five years and above (Smock and Pamela, 2000). Hence, does cohabitation prove to be a good alternative to marriage?

Cohabitation is a when two people choose to live together in a sexual relationship without marriage. There are six reasons why couples decide to cohabitate. First, the rejection of the superficial dating game. For example, guys have it very hard when it comes to dating. They need to present themselves as a masculine, yet sensitive in order to attract a women, but most of the time they get rejected. Women also have it hard because they have to be attractive all the time in order to receive an invitation to go start dating. Most of the time men and women play games when it comes to dating, so people get tired of been played. Second, couples decide to cohabitate because of the desire to enter a meaningful relationship with more intimacy. Again,

Yes, I agree with the fact that cohabitation is increasingly accepted in today's society, especially, in the US. What I learned from my sociology class is that, there are still class differences about cohabitation. For example, college-educated and moderately educated people have their own reasons on why they decide to cohabitate. It is also said that people who cohabitate before marriage have higher divorce rates compared to people who get married without cohabitate.

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.

Cohabitating before marriage can financially benefit a couple. Paying rent or two separate mortgages at separate homes when they could share a space and only have one set of bills instead of two is just one example of how this could be beneficial. With the cost of food rising on a regular basis it doesn’t make sense to constantly eat out or buy groceries for separate homes when they could cut the cost living under one residence. By living together before marriage, they could also cut their fuel expenses that are spent from travelling back and forth to one another’s homes to visit with each other. “In a recession, it just doesn’t make any sense for two people who say they love each other to pay separate rents” (Alexia, Para 2). “Cohabitation and marriage could be more successful when they are built from sound understanding and financial foundation” (Living Together, Para 9).

Attention Getter: Has anyone ever considered that before marriage you’re going to cohabit with your partner? Well, from psychology it says people start cohabiting because they enhance the opportunity to see if whether it’s compatible or not. According to statistics it says just over fifty percent of cohabiting couples never marry or if so it increases the divorce chances. With being married there is a greater chance because, statics shows that percentages are low and separation percentages has tremendously decreased since 1980.

Negative effect on separation for both partners with the existence of children while living together.

However, they are not ready to get married, so they choose to cohabitate instead. According to Rhoades, G. (2009), cohabitation is defined as “partners in a romantic relationship who are living together without being married” (p.229). Some of these couples enter into this agreement with the hope of becoming married down the road. Their goal for the time being is just to gain more knowledge about one another, and see if they can make living together work, before making a lifetime commitment. Consequently, the rate of divorce in today’s society has many people running scarred at the idea of marriage. Furthermore, if the relationship does come to an end there are no strings attached, so both people can just walk away.

One of the most dramatic trends of recent years has been the tremendous increase in male-female couples who choose to live together without marrying, a practice called cohabitation. According to the 2000 Census, there are eleven million unmarried people living with an unmarried partner in the United States today, and this number has grown 72% in the last decade alone. While many people like David Popenoe, a Professor of Sociology, on his essay Sociological Reasons Not to Live Together suggests that living together is not a good way to prepare for marriage or to avoid divorce. There is another point of view like an organization called The Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP)

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

As I began my research this subject, I asked myself what factors I thought affected why people cohabitated. My assumptions were three-fold: first, a couple became pregnant and therefore living together would benefit the child; second, they wanted to spend more time together for intimacy reason’s; and thirdly, because the couple’s relationship was static not progressing forward,

Why should we try cohabitation for the short time before marriage? Did you hear about this analogy? “You wouldn 't buy a car without driving first, would you?”(Kukla, part. 1). Testing a new car will let you know how it is working and how comfortable it is. Marriage is very similar, but we cannot just turn the key to seeing if our prospective marriage partner is suitable. Everyone in our days wants to have a happy family because it is one of the important things in our life. Unfortunately, we don’t have a magic rule for all of us, and everybody tries to find the best way. Compare marriage to a test drive: the majority of young people these days decide to check the compatibility of a partner by living together for a period of time to see

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