COHABITATION

Cohabitation

Cohabitation

Introduction

On an individual level, people cohabit for a number of reasons. Cohabitation may make the most financial sense for a dating couple strapped to pay for separate living arrangements. Cohabitation may be a matter of convenience for couples. Cohabitation may serve as a trial marriage for couples and allow for easier dissolution if the relationship ends (Spanier, 2006).

Finally, unmarried cohabitation is the only option for homosexual couples in many states although gay couples in Massachusetts, parts of Canada, and some European countries can be legally married. But it is yet unclear as to who can fully enter into a legal married union (Smock, 2007). These reasons, though, do not address the growing trend of cohabitation.

Thesis Statement

Cohabitation may be an alternative to marriage for couples that do not believe a more formal arrangement is necessary or optimal.

Discussion

Although it is difficult to point to any one factor causing the societal boom in cohabitation, the improved status of women certainly plays a role. Before the 1960s, few women in the United States worked outside of the home and marriage was the primary means of economic subsistence for women. Today, 95% of women will work outside of the home at some point in their lives, 60% of women at any given time are working for pay, and nearly 60% of college entrants are women (McGinnis, 2007).

Cohabitation has become an increasingly important—but poorly delineated—context for childrearing. One quarter of current stepfamilies involve cohabiting couples, and a significant proportion of “single-parent” families are actually two-parent cohabiting families. The parenting role of a cohabiting partner toward the children of the other person is extremely vaguely defined and lacks both social and legal support.

Cohabiting men and women report slightly more sexual activity than married people. But cohabiting men and women are less likely than those who are married to be monogamous, although virtually all say that they expect their relationship to be sexually exclusive.

Marriage is no longer the only option for financial security for women (and their children). Further easing the pressure toward marriage for women is the availability of reliable contraception and the subsequent demise of the “shotgun” marriage. Cohabitation may be seen as a comparable alternative to marriage for women who do not need the security that a more formal union may have provided in the past. Cohabitation may also be seen as an acceptable precursor to marriage while one finishes school or establishes a career (Brown, 2006).

Another explanation for the increase in cohabitation and decrease in marriage is that the social mandate for marriage has weakened. In 1950, 67% of men and women over 15 were married; in 2002, only 55% of men and women over 15 were married—and this percentage typically reflects an older segment of the population. Only 7% of American households represent the “traditional” family of a married heterosexual couple with children (Spanier, 2006).

There is a general sense among adult men and women that marriage is not necessarily the culmination of a long-term dating relationship. Religious doctrine has been the long-standing force against ...