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Old 27th October 2009, 02:18 AM   #1
Ageing Grace
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 738
Living together before marriage

I read this article in the press, which Dave flagged in his quarterly review. It says that couples who cohabited before marrying were twice as likely to divorce (couples who moved in together after engagement fell in the middle of those two statistics).

I am unconvinced that this tells us anything at all. Here's why.
Couples decide to live together for one of four reasons:
1] They specifically want not to marry (I have a friend like this; I understand her reasons. She's been with her partner for 20 years).
2] It's a convenience arrangement.
3] They like being together, but aren't committed enough to marry.
4] They're trying out before signing the contract.
Only the last of these are likely to marry. The second and third might tie the knot for reasons unrelated to lasting love: social pressures; children (in circumstances where unmarried parents could prejudice the child's fortunes); perhaps finance.

Their chances of staying together, given their weak commitment in the first place, would seem slim. In the survey, 4 out of 5 of them had stayed together. I think that speaks well of marriage, and of couples' levels of moral integrity!

In so far as there is a tradition of cohabiting before marriage - the tradition is only 40 years old in Europe; less in the USA - the fourth reason would be the commonest. Did living together, pre-wedding, make them more disposed to divorce?
Quote:
Dr Rhoades said:

‘Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships. Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time.’
I think he said it there. However, would you prefer that fewer people get married because of this doubt?

One in eight of the living-together-while-engaged couples were heading for divorce. This means that 7 out of 8 (88%) of them were still happy after 10 years married! Does this really indicate that cohabiting is bad for marriage?

Taking all the survey statistics together, it suggests an overall divorce rate of 25% which I believe is right for the US.

Out of the sample of one thousand, 70% had lived together before getting married - that's 700 couples from a sample of 1,000. 31% of them had serious relationship problems.

Only 300 couples in the sample had married without living together. This 30% is representative of all marriages in the US.

They had a problem rate of 10%. Being less than a third of married couples - that is, the different minority - they don't constitute a reliable sample on their own. They could have been the lucky 30% who knew they'd met their perfect match, or all 300 could have married at a Moonie mass wedding ...

For me, the above is statistical proof that this survey proves nothing. If you want to look at it in more ordinary terms: Yes, couples who lived together before marriage have a higher risk of divorce. But many of those couples wouldn't have married at all, if they hadn't lived together!

It is basically impossible to compare marriage in our current time - where the majority of couples live together - with marriage in situations where the 'trial' option doesn't exist. The reason is that living together automatically becomes an option when a woman's choices become broader.

Before the mid-20th century a woman could not earn a decent living independently. Additionally, she could not rear children independently but could not restrict her fertility. There were no divorce settlements in favour of wives; no childcare agreements; wife beating was not a crime; a wife could not buy property or write her own will. Essentially, marriage was a financial necessity - and a social requirement.

We wouldn't want to go back to those days, but my point is that marriage in Western societies is now about love & commitment, for the first time in history.

To say that trial cohabitation damages marriage is nonsensical. Trial cohabitation is proof, more than anything, that couples are taking the commitment seriously - along with their compatibility & everyday issues - and, most importantly, are marrying for love. This is something to be celebrated, surely, not despised!

Incidentally, the christian marriage ceremony was invented 450 years ago (link). Before that it was a matter of civil agreement ... which is what we now call "cohabiting"

AG

Last edited by Ageing Grace; 27th October 2009 at 02:39 AM. Reason: corrected a calculation
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