MARRIAGE - Clover Sites



MARRIAGE

&

DIVORCE

READINGS

Cohabitation

by Kerby Anderson*

Introduction

"Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the first living together experience for young men and women." And those who live together before they get married are putting their future marriage in danger. Those are some of the conclusions by sociologists David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in their study for the National Marriage Project.{1}

In this article we are going to talk about this social phenomenon of cohabitation. It used to be called "living in sin" or "shacking up." Today, it has been replaced by more neutral terms like "living together" or "cohabitation." For this article, I will use the term cohabitation since it is the generally accepted term in society and law. Cohabitation has been defined as "two unrelated persons of the opposite sex who share common living arrangements in a sexually intimate relationship without legal or religious sanction."{2}

Cohabitation, as a lifestyle, is on the rise. Consider the significant growth in cohabitation rates in the last few decades. In 1960 and 1970, about a half million were living together. But by 1980 that number was 1.5 million. By 1990 the number was nearly three million. And by 2000 the number was almost five million.{3}

Researchers estimate that today as many as 50% of Americans cohabit at one time or another prior to marriage.{4} The stereotype of two young, childless people living together is not completely accurate; currently, some 40% of cohabiting relationships involve children.{5}

America also appears to be changing its attitude toward cohabitation. George Barna has reported that 60% of Americans believed that the best way to establish a successful marriage is to cohabit prior to marriage.{6} Another survey found that two thirds (66%) of high school senior boys agreed or mostly agreed with the statement "it is usually a good idea for a couple to live together before getting married in order to find out whether they really get along."{7}

Cohabitation is not the same as marriage. It is not recognized as marriage by the state. And the participants are living together because it is their intent not to be married, at least for the time being.

Although some people will say that a cohabiting couple is "married in the eyes of God," that is not true [at least not from a Christian Biblical position]. They are not married in God's eyes because they are living contrary to biblical statements about marriage. And they are not married in their own eyes because they have specifically decided not to marry.

Cohabitation is without a doubt changing the cultural landscape of our society. The proportion of first marriages preceded by cohabitation has increased ten-fold in the last few decades. And the increasing number of cohabiting couples sends a mixed message to our children. On the one hand, they hear parents and pastors proclaim the value of marriage. But on the other hand, they see a culture condoning cohabitation.

Cohabitation and Test-drive Relationships

"I think we should live together before we get married to see if we are compatible."

How many times have we heard that line? But many of the current assumptions about living together are incorrect.

Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher wrote The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially.{8} It not only makes the case for marriage, it also challenges contemporary assumptions about cohabitation.

The thesis of the book is simple. Back in the 1950s, the rules were clear: first love, next marriage, and only then the baby carriage. But the social "tsunami" of the 1960s that struck changed everything. The Pill, the sexual revolution, gay pride, feminism, mothers in the workplace, no-fault divorce, and the rise of illegitimate births changed our views of marriage and family. The authors marshal the evidence to show that marriage is a good thing. As the subtitle says, married people are happier, healthier and better off financially.

Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom is that you should "try before you buy." In fact, one of the oft-repeated questions justifying living together is: "You wouldn't buy a car without a test drive would you?" The problem with such questions and slogans is they dehumanize the other person. If I decide not to buy a car (or a pair of shoes or whatever the inanimate object), the car doesn't feel rejected. When you test-drive your car, you don't pack your personal luggage in the trunk. And rejecting a car model doesn't bring emotional baggage into the next test-driving experience. The car doesn't need psychological counseling so that it can trust the next car buyer. Frankly, test-driving a relationship is only positive if you are the driver.

Research has shown that those who cohabit tend to view marriage negatively because it involved the assumption of new responsibilities that contrasted with their former freedoms. On the other hand, those marrying through the conventional route of dating and courtship did not feel constrained by marriage, but liberated by marriage.{9}

Consider the contrast. A couple living together has nearly everything marriage has to offer (including sex) but few commitments or responsibilities. So, cohabiting people feel trapped when they enter marriage. They must assume huge new responsibilities while getting nothing they didn't already have.

Couples entering marriage through dating and courtship experience just the opposite, especially if they maintain their sexual purity. Marriage is the culmination of their relationship and provides the full depth of a relationship they have long anticipated.

This is not to say that cohabitation guarantees marital failure nor that marriage through the conventional route guarantees marital success. There are exceptions to this rule, but a couple who live together before marriage stack the odds against themselves and their future marriage.

Cohabitation and Perceptions

If you live together before you get married, you're putting your future marriage in danger. That's the conclusion of a recent report on cohabitation. America's five million cohabiting couples live together to save money, to test-run a marriage, or to stave off loneliness. But the practice can cause significant harm to a marriage.

Sociologists David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead released their study through the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. Their study confirms earlier studies about the danger of cohabiting, and adds additional detail.

They found that cohabiting appears to be so counterproductive to long-lasting marriage that unmarried couples should avoid living together, especially if it involves children. They argue that living together is "a fragile family form" that poses increased risk to women and children.

Part of the reason for the danger is the difference in perception. Men often enter the relationship with less intention to marry than do women. They may regard it more as a sexual opportunity without the ties of long-term commitment. Women, however, often see the living arrangement as a step toward eventual marriage. So while the women may believe they are headed for marriage, the man has other ideas. Some men actually resent the women they live with and view them as easy. Such a woman is not his idea of a faithful marriage partner.

People who live together in uncommitted relationships may be unwilling to work out problems. Since there is no long-term commitment, often it is easy to leave the current living arrangement and seek less fractious relationships with a new partner.

The ten-fold increase in cohabitation in the last few decades is staggering. The reasons for the growth are many: fewer taboos against premarital sex, earlier sexual maturity, later marriage, adequate income to live apart from their families.

Whatever the reasons for cohabiting, this study documents the dangers. Couples who live together are more likely to divorce than those who don't. They are less happy and score lower on well-being indices, including sexual satisfaction. And cohabiting couples are often poorer than married couples.

…

Consequences of Cohabitation

Contrary to conventional wisdom, cohabitation can be harmful to marriage as well as to the couples and their children. One study based on the National Survey of Families and Households found that marriages which had prior cohabitors were 46% more likely to divorce than marriages of noncohabitors. The authors concluded from this study and from a review of previous studies that the risk of marital disruption following cohabitation "is beginning to take on the status of an empirical generalization."{10}

Some have tried to argue that the correlation between cohabitation and divorce is artificial since people willing to cohabit are more unconventional and less committed to marriage. In other words, cohabitation doesn't cause divorce but is merely associated with it because the same type of people are involved in both phenomena. Yet, even when this "selection effect" is carefully controlled statistically, a "cohabitation effect" remains.

Marriages are held together by a common commitment which is absent in most, if not all, cohabiting relationships. Partners who live together value autonomy over commitment and tend not to be as committed as married couples in their dedication to the continuation of the relationship.{11}

One study found that "living with a romantic partner prior to marriage was associated with more negative and less positive problem solving support and behavior during marriage." The reason is simple. Since there is less certainty of a long-term commitment, "there may be less motivation for cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and support skills."{12}

Couples living together, however, miss out on more than just the benefits of marriage. Annual rates of depression among cohabiting couples are more than three times higher than they are among married couples.{13} Those who cohabit are much more likely to be unhappy in marriage and much more likely to think about divorce.{14}

Women in cohabiting relationships are more than twice as likely than married women to suffer physical and sexual abuse.{15} Another study found that women in cohabiting relationships are nine times more likely to be killed by their partner than are women in marital relationships.{16}

Cohabitation is especially harmful to children. First, several studies have found that children currently living with a mother and her unmarried partner have significantly more behavior problems and lower academic performance than children in intact families.{17} Second, there is the risk that the couple will break up creating even more social and personal difficulties. Third, many of these children were not born in the present union but in a previous union of one of the adult partners (usually the mother). Living in a house with a mother and an unmarried boyfriend is tenuous at best. Legal claims to child support and other sources of family income are absent.

…

Notes

1. David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, "Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage," The National Marriage Project, the Next Generation Series, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, January 1999.

2. P.G. Jackson, "On Living Together Unmarried," Journal of Family Issues 4(1983), 39.

3. U. S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20-537; America's Families and Living Arrangements: March 2000 and earlier reports.

4. Larry L. Bumpass, James A. Sweet, and Andrew Cherlin, "The Role of Cohabitation in the Declining Rates of Marriage," Journal of Marriage and Family 53(1991), 914.

5. Ibid., 926.

6. George Barna, The Future of the American Family (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993), 131.

7. Jerald G. Bachman, Lloyd D. Johnston, and Patrick M. O'Malley, Monitoring the Future: Questionnaire Responses from the Nation's High School Seniors, 2000 (Ann Arbor: MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 2001).

8. Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially (New York: Random House, 2000).

9. R.E.L. Watson, "Premarital Cohabitation vs. Traditional Courtship: The Effects of Subsequent Marital Adjustment," Family Relations 32(1981), 139-147.

10. Alfred DeMaris and K. Vaninadha Rao, "Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Stability in the United States: A Reassessment," Journal of Marriage and Family 54(1992), 178-190.

11. Stephen Nock, "A Comparison of Marriages and Cohabiting Relationships," Journal of Family Issues 16(1995), 53-76.

12. Catherine L. Cohan and Stacey Kleinbaum, "Toward A Greater Understanding of the Cohabitation Effect: Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Communication," Journal of Marriage and Family 64(2002), 180-192.

13. Lee Robins and Darrel Reiger, Psychiatric Disorders in America (New York: Free Press, 1990), 72.

14. Andrew Greeley, Faithful Attraction (New York: Tom Doherty, 1991), 206.

15. Jan E. Stets, "Cohabiting and Marital Aggression: The Role of Social Isolation," Journal of Marriage and Family 53(1991): 669-680.

16. Todd K. Shackelford, "Cohabitation, Marriage and Murder," Aggressive Behavior 27(2001), 284-191.

17. Elizabeth Thompson, T. L. Hanson, and S.S. McLanahan, "Family Structure and Child Well-Being: Economic Resources versus Parental Behaviors," Social Forces 71(1994), 221-242; Rachel Dunifon and Lori Kowaleski-Jones, "Who's in the House? Effects of Family Structure on Children's Home Environments and Cognitive Outcomes," Child Development, forthcoming.

Marriage Matters

Current snapshot of marriage in America

compiled by John Thomas

Over the past three decades there has been a significant and increasing loss of the ideal of marriage in our nation.

In 1970, 3.2 percent of the nation’s population over 18 was divorced. By 1996, that percentage rose to 9.4.1

From 1960 to 1990, the number of children living with a divorced parent increased 352 percent.2

From 1970 to 1996, the percentage of the population over 18 years of age that were cohabiting rose over 400 percent. 3

From 1970 to 1996, the number of all people over 18 years of age who had never married increased from 16 percent to 23 percent.4

"If the family trends of recent decades are extended into the future, the result will be not only growing uncertainty within marriage, but the gradual elimination of marriage in favor of casual liaisons oriented to adult expressiveness and self-fulfillment. The problem with this scenario is that children will be harmed, adults will probably be no happier, and the social order could collapse."--Rutgers Sociology Professor David Popenoe.5

Marriage and Sexuality

Research shows that sexuality functions best when it is exercised within the confines of marriage.

Married people are most likely to report they are "extremely" or "very satisfied" with the physical and emotional parts of their sex life.6

People who have engaged in premarital sex "fairly often" with someone other than their spouse are more likely to be unfaithful after marriage.7

In a recent study on premarital sex and the risk of divorce, the Journal of Marriage and the Family reported that those women who had been sexually active prior to marriage faced "a considerably higher risk of marital disruption than women who were virgin brides."8

Marriage and Well-Being

Adults who are married do markedly better in virtually every measure of well-being than those who are not married.

According to studies at UCLA School of Medicine9 and the University of Massachusetts,10 married people live longer and generally are more emotionally and physically healthy than the unmarried.

Married people have lower rates of alcoholism, suicide and mental health problems than unmarried.11

Married people are more likely to describe themselves as "happy and contented with life."12

University of Chicago social demographer Linda J. Waite reports that, on average, married men and women, even if they are unhealthy, live significantly longer than healthy, unmarried men and women.13 For example, research shows that a married man with heart disease can be expected to live, on average, 1,400 days longer than an unmarried man with a healthy heart.14

Marriage and Children

Children who are born to and live with their married parents do markedly better in every measure of well-being than children who do not.

Children living with both parents are significantly more likely to do better in every measure of educational success than those with only one parent.15

Boys living with both parents are much less likely to be convicted of a crime or have "run-ins" with the law.16

Children living with both biological parents, when compared to children who do not, are roughly 30 percent less likely to have health problems and are much less likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems.17

Marriage vs. Cohabiting

Cohabitants have less healthy relationships than married couples, and when they do marry, their marriages are at a much greater risk of dissolution than those who do not cohabit.

Researchers from Yale University, Columbia University, and the Institute for Resource Development at Westinghouse, found that divorce is significantly more prevalent for couples who cohabit with their future spouses. They found that, on average, women who cohabit before marriage have a divorce rate that is 80 percent higher that the rates of those who do not.18

A study conducted by the Family Violence Research Program at the University of New Hampshire found that, compared to married couples, the overall rates of violence for cohabiting couples was twice as high, and the overall rate for "severe" violence was nearly five times as high.19

Women in cohabiting relationships report a much greater rates of depression than women in married relationships.20

Recovering a Marriage Culture

Many steps are being taken to try to reverse the damage done by the "divorce revolution," begun in the 1960’s when no-fault divorce laws went into effect in several states. By 1985, each of the fifty states had enacted some variation of no-fault divorce laws. Today, many sociologists are reporting that no-fault divorce laws have been a failure by virtually every measure, causing one researcher to report, "Seldom in U.S. history have laws been enacted with higher hopes and poorer results than the no-fault divorce statutes."21

What To Do

Here are several ways to help recover a culture that appreciates, values, and esteems marriage:

Married couples can seek ways to improve their own marriage and encourage other couples to do the same. There is a vast amount of resources available to engaged and married couples to help strengthen their marriage and help those marriages that are facing troubles. Books, study guides, video and audio tapes, and marriage conferences are just a few tools designed to promote strong, healthy marriages.

Churches can adopt "covenant marriage policies." These policies set guidelines as to how they will approach marriage in their congregation. Typically these guidelines include any combination of statements about pre-marital counseling, the length of engagement, accountability, and so forth. For any couple wishing to get married in that church, they must agree to honor the marriage policy. With the church still being the place where the vast majority of marriages occur, policies like these can have a tremendous impact.

Support divorce reform laws that encourage more reflection on the divorce process and require parents to consider the long-term impact that divorce will have upon them and their children.

Support "covenant marriage" legislation like was recently passed in Louisiana, where couples who are getting married can, if they so choose, apply to their marriage legislation that requires premarital counseling, limits grounds for divorce, and requires struggling couples to get counseling before they are granted a divorce.

Many communities are adopting resolutions that affirm life-long marriage and strong, intact families as a community norm and goal.

Support tax code changes that do not penalize married couples by taxing them at a higher rate. These marriage penalty taxes encourage some couples to cohabit rather than marry.

Endnotes

1Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1993, p. 53, and 1997, p. 55, comparing total number of divorced people over 18 to the total population over 18.

2U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, p. 23, No. 180, "Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the 1990’s."

3Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1993, p. 54, and 1997, p. 57, comparing total number of cohabiting couples to total population over 18.

4Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1993, p. 53, and 1997, p. 55, comparing total number of never married people over 18 to the total population over 18.

5David Popenoe, "Modern Marriage: Revisiting the Cultural Script," Promises to Keep, 1996, p. 248.

6Robert Michael, et al., Sex in America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994); E.O. Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

7Andrew M. Greeley, Faithful Attraction: Discovering Intimacy, Love and Fidelity in American Marriage (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991).

8Joan R. Kahn and Kathryn A. London, "Premarital Sex and the Risk of Divorce," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53 (1991): 845-855.

9Robert H. Coombs, "Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review," British Journal of Medical Psychology, (1991) 40:97-102, p. 97.

10Catherine K. Riessman and Naomi Gerstel, "Marital Dissolution and Health: Do Males or Females Have Greater Risk?" Social Science and Medicine 20 (1985): 627-635.

11Coombs.

12Ibid.

13Ibid.

14Ibid.

15Darin R. Featherstone, Bert P. Cundick, and Larry C. Jensen, "Differences in School Behavior and Achievement Between Children From Intact, Reconstituted, and Single-Parent Families," Adolescence 27 (1992): 1-12.

16M. Anne Hill and June O’Neill, "Underclass Behaviors in the United States: Measurement and Analysis of Determinants," (Center for the Study of Business and Government, Baruch College/The City University of New York, August 1993), p. 73.

17Deborah A. Dawson, "Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health," Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 578-579

18Neil G. Bennett, Ann Klimas Blanc, and David E. Bloom, "Commitment and the Modern Union: Assessing the Link Between Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Stability," American Sociological Review 53 (1988): 127-138.

19Kersti Yllo and Murray A. Straus, "Interpersonal Violence Among Married and Cohabiting Couples," Family Relations 30 (1981): p. 343.

20Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) p. 251.

21Allen M. Parkman, No-Fault Divorce: What Went Wrong?, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), p. 53.

Copyright © 1998 Focus on the Family.

All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

ALTERNATIVES TO GETTING MARRIED & STAYING MARRIED: THE EFFECTS*

ON PHYSICAL HEALTH AND WELL BEING

1. 70% OF CHRONIC PROBLEM DRINKERS ARE SEPARATED OR DIVORCED

2. SINGLE MEN ARE 3 TIMES AS LIKELY TO DIE OF CIRRHOSIS AS ARE MARRIED MEN OF THE SAME AGE

3. SUICIDE RATES ARE THE HIGHEST AMONG THE DIVORCED AND THE NEVER MARRIED, AND THE LOWEST AMONG THE MARRIED

4. DIVORCED WOMEN HAVE DOUBLE THE RATE OF INJURIES OF MARRIED WOMEN

5. THOSE WHO LIVE ALONE OR WHO LIVE WITH SOMEONE WHO IS NOT THEIR SPOUSE LIVE SHORTER LIVES THAN PEOPLE WHO ARE MARRIED

6. UNMARRIED, DIVORCED AND COHABITING PEOPLE HAVE TO USE HEALTH CARE SERVICES MORE THAN DO MARRIED PEOPLE, AND WHEN THEY GET SICK THEY TAKE LONGER TO GET WELL THAN DO MARRIED PEOPLE

ON MENTAL HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

1. THE HIGHEST MENTAL HOSPITAL ADMISSION RATES ARE CONSISTENLY FOUND AMONG THE DIVORCED, FOLLOWED BY THE WIDOWED, THE SINGLE, AND LASTLY, BY THE MARRIED.

2. THE PSYCHIATRIC ADMISSION RATE FOR SINGLE SCHIZOPHRENIC MALES WAS 5.4 TIMES GREATER THAN FOR MARRIED SCHIZOPHRENIC MALES.

3. GREATER PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS IS ASSOCIATED WITH WOMEN NOT LIVING AS MARRIED, THAN WITH MARRIED WOMEN.

4. DIVORCED PERSONS ARE 6-10 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO USE INPATIENT PSYCHIATRIC FACILITIES AND 4-5 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO USE OUTPATIENT CLINICS THAN ARE MARRIED PERSONS.

5. NO PART OF THE UNMARRIED POPULATION DESCRIBES ITSELF AS BEING SO HAPPY AND CONTENTED WITH LIFE AS DO THE MARRIED.

6. CONTRARY TO THE PICTURE OF THE GRIM MENTAL HEALTH OF WIVES POPULARIZED BY BETTY FRIEDAN AND OTHER FEMINIST SOCIAL SCIENTISTS, THE FAVORABLE COMPARISONS OF MARRIED PERSONS TO UNMARRIED PERSONS ARE EVEN STRONGER FOR WOMEN THAN THEY ARE FOR MEN.

ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF CHILDREN

➢ CHILDREN OF DIVORCES ROUTINELY SCORE LOWER THAN DO CHILDREN OF NEVER-DIVORCED MARRIED PEOPLE, AVERAGED AND CONTROLLED FOR VARIABLES

➢ CHILDREN OF REMARRIED PEOPLE SCORE EVEN LOWER THAN DO CHILDREN OF DIVORCES

WHY?*

1. CHILDREN OFTEN DEMONSTRATE RELUCTANCE IN ACCEPTING A NEW PARENTAL FIGURE

2. CHILDREN STRUGGLE WITH NEW STEP-SIBLING RIVALRIES

3. CHILDREN STRUGGLE WITH JEALOUSY TOWARD THE NEW STEP-PARENT

4. THE PRESENCE OF A STEP-PARENT OFTEN REDUCES THE CLOSENESS OF THE RELATIONSHIP THE CHILD HAS WITH THE BIOLOGICAL PARENT

5. CHILDREN SUFFER BECAUSE REMARRIAGE PRODUCES INCREASED TENSION BETWEEN THE CHILD’S BIOLOGICAL PARENTS

OTHER EFFECTS ON CHILDREN OF DIVORCES, REMARRIAGES AND COHABITATION OF PARENTS

1. INCREASED DROPOUT RATE

2. INCREASED NEED FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP

3. LOWER SELF ESTEEM

4. LOWERED SOCIOECONOMIC ATTAINMENT

5. LOWERED MARITAL STABILITY

6. FAMILY BREAKDOWN AND RESULTANT SINGLE PARENT HOUSEHOLDS ARE THE #1 CAUSE OF VIOLENT BEHAVIOR BY CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

SOURCES:

STANTON, GLENN T. ONLY A PIECE OF PAPER? THE UNQUESTIONABLE BENEFITS OF LIFELONG MARRIAGE. COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.: PUBLIC POLICY DIVISION, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, 1995.

JEYNES, WILLIAM H. “DOES DIVORCE OR REMARRIAGE HAVE THE GREATER NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF CHILDREN?” IN JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE, VOL. 29. BINGHAMTON, NY: HAWORTH PRESS, 1998.

* ALL STATISTICS COMPARE SIMILAR AGE AND ETHNIC GROUPS

* For more on the relationship between emotional health and intelligence, see Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman (New York: Bantam, 1995).

• Some comments added by instructor appear in brackets [___].

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download