Happily Un-Married!
Living Together & Loving It!
TRENDS IN COHABITATION!
- In the U.S. and much of Western Europe, over 50% of all marrying couples live together first.
- Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the first living together experience for young men and women.
- There will likely be a growing surge in cohabitation since 75% of high school students believe living together is a worthwhile and harmless alternative, and over 60% of high school girls and nearly 70% of high school boys have a favorable opinion of cohabitation.
- There has been little, if any, public opposition to cohabitation and it is now more widely accepted than divorce or having a child out of wedlock.
- Nearly 50% of all children will spend some time in a cohabiting family before age 16.
- Cohabitating couples are seen as financially unstable, yet many of today’s cohabitating couples combine their earning-power and purchase a residence together.
- While many cohabitating couple are said to be unsound for raising a family, many have children together and stay together for the sake of the children.
- Many cohabitating couples lower their expectations and expect to invest less and receive less from the relationship by taking a “wait and see” attitude.
- Many cohabitating couples are actually involved in serial, cohabitating relationships where changing live-in partners is commonplace.
- However, an increasing number of cohabitating couples see themselves as deeply involved but they also view their relationship as less of a full commitment than that defined by legal marriage.
- Not
unlike previous generations, the vast majority of young people today
want to marry and have children. However, unlike any past generation,
most see cohabitation as a normal, logical “next step” before walking
down the aisle or as an alternative to ever marrying.
- It would be easy to assume that with the growth of cohabitation, marriage is becoming an endangered institution. However, it is too early to say this move away from legally binding relationships is a long-term trend or that we are merely seeing the bottom of the marriage cycle and that marriage is on the upswing.
- Cohabitation should no longer be treated as a single social phenomena but, instead, a widely diverse foundation for building an intimate relationship or at least experimenting with being in one.
- All indications are that cohabitation will be a permanent feature in our society and the basis for a new form of family union. So in light of this reality, the logical response is to work to strengthen the institution of cohabitation not condemn it.
- Many children of divorce develop the... “I’ll not go through what my parents did” mindset, and cohabitate instead. Therefore, one could assume that children of cohabitating parents may also develop a similar... “I’ll not go through what my parents did” reaction and marry instead. Therefore, it is possible to forecast that future generations of the children of cohabitation will seek the stability of legal marriage, rejecting the foundation of their parents’ cohabitation relationship as just too insecure.
- In this regard, the key is to determine the difference between a cycle and a trend. The current evidence does not verify that cohabitation is a long-term, lasting trend or merely part of a multi-generational experiment that will ultimately “fizzle out” due to a loss of interest and lack of perceived benefit.
