Post Date December, 02 2023
Cohabitation, which is one layer deeper than dating and one layer shallower than marriage, is basically not protected by law. Thirty or forty years ago, cohabitation was relatively rare in the United States, mostly among artists and some "problem groups", and was considered "immoral" by society. According to statistics, there were 500000 cohabiting couples in the United States in 1970, and today this number is close to 5 million. In addition, millions of people have cohabited before. Some men and women choose to live together in this way and never get married again, but it is only a rare occurrence. Currently, 90% of young people in the United States are still willing to get married, and more than half of them have cohabited before marriage. However, cohabitation has begun to replace marriage in Sweden, France, and Quebec, Canada.
Reason: Just to save some rent?
Sociologist Pamela Schmerk from the University of Michigan in the United States said that young people think it's foolish not to live together for a period of time before getting married. They don't want to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation and get married hastily but end up in divorce. Therefore, cohabitation is only a useful means to avoid unfortunate marriages and divorces. According to statistics, about half of cohabitants ultimately choose to separate.
Sociologist Paul Amato from Pennsylvania State University in the United States said that people are much more picky when choosing a marriage partner than when choosing a cohabitation partner. Many people cohabit just to share the cost of living, feel more secure, or just want to have a companion, but they are not very involved in this relationship.
Cohabiting men and women live together almost entirely by chance. For example, they are always together, and the lease on one side of the house has just expired. Why not live together! Another situation of cohabitation is when one party cannot be certain that the other party is a suitable marriage material: he loves drinking, and when she quarrels, she is not a human being... So they do not make promises and live together on an experimental basis.
Harm: The trouble of instability
Recent studies have pointed out that cohabitation has a negative impact on intimate relationships. The divorce demography of cohabitants before marriage is twice that of those who live together after marriage. Men and women who choose to cohabit have relatively few traditional beliefs about marriage and divorce, and do not feel that marriage is sacred. This means that after cohabiting men and women get married, once the marriage becomes pathological, they are more likely to decide to divorce.
Some sociologists believe that unmarried cohabitation is prone to divorce due to other reasons, such as an increased likelihood of divorce in the first 15 years of marriage when the family's annual income is less than 25000 US dollars. Schmerk said that having money means future economic stability, living in a safe environment, which is more important than the factor of cohabitation. The survey found that many cohabitants often have low income and education levels, which can damage their relationships.
The study also pointed out that people who lived together before the wedding exchange oath had poorer marital quality, lower marital satisfaction, more arguments, poorer communication, and lower loyalty. Scholars believe that the love of cohabitation weakens commitments in intimate relationships. This means that people living together originally intended to ensure the quality of their marriage, but it may have the opposite effect. Susan Brown found that cohabiting men and women are more likely to experience depression, which is related to their unstable financial situation. Therefore, long-term cohabitation is rare, with most people breaking up or getting married within 5 years. She said that uncertainty about future relationships is a problem that troubles cohabitants.
Cohabitation also poses a serious problem: children. 40% of cohabitants have children, and approximately 3.5 million children in the United States live with two unmarried adults. In terms of mental health and academic performance, these children are significantly worse than those of married parents, which is related to the instability of cohabitation relationships.
