People Should Not Cohabitate Before Marriage

People should not cohabitate before marriage
For many people, marriage is a holly and sacred thing that is the result of true love.
It is not only a legal commitment between two individuals but also an important step of
one's life. Therefore, people have to consider seriously before getting married. A lot of
people find the best way to test their marriage is cohabitation. The number of couples living
before marriage is increasing dramatically in many countries. The proportion cohabiting
among men and women more than doubled from 1986 to 2002 (Thomson Gale, 2008).
Cohabitation has advantages such as money saving, relationship testing and so on.
However, the disadvantages seems to be outnumber the advantages. In the final analysis,
we firmly believe that people should not cohabitate before marriage for several reasons.
First, couples who cohabitate have no legal commitment between each other.
"Cohabitation is an arrangement where two people who are not married live together in an
intimate relationship" (Cohabitation, 2012, para. 1). In a non-obligation relationship like
cohabitation, couple take no responsibility for each other. Thus, as an online article (Should
we move in together?, 2012) indicated, any minor differences may urge individuals to
escape from this kind of relationship. While in a marriage relationship, couples would try
their best to find a solution and "strive for a harmonious relationship because of the
additional moral, legal and familial commitments" (para 6.)
Moreover, cohabitation is just a trend of society which means most of couples do not
consider well before moving together. Ray Fowler (Statistic for living together before
marriage, 2008) reported that the number of unmarried couples living together has
increased from 430 000 in 1960 to 5.4 million in 2005. "About 45 percent of those who begin
cohabitating do not marry" (para.4) he added.
Those who cohabitate fear, or are not ready for, such an permanent relationship like
marriage choose cohabitation as the best solution. Marriage is a lifelong commitment
whereas people who committed cohabitation only to satisfy their personal satisfactions such
as money saving or sexual satisfaction. Therefore, cohabitants are more likely than non-
cohabitants to have negative attitudes about marriage and more likely to accept divorce as a
solution to marriage problems (Jeffry H. Larson, 2001). "Couples who do marry after
living together are 50 percent more likely to get divorced than those who did not" (Ray
Fowler, 2008, para. 5). In short, as cohabitation is a trend of society, couples usually do not
consider carefully before living together. This increases the risk of breaking up among
couples who end up marrying.
Third, cohabitation can result in physical problems among couples. Cohabitation
unions tend to weaken the institution of marriage and present dangers for women and
children. Jenny Tyree (2010) reported that the rate of violence for cohabitating couples is as
twice as high as for married couples and 14 percent of cohabitants admit to hitting, shoving
or throwing things at their partner, compared to 5 percent of married couples.
Furthermore, male cohabitants are more likely to abuse the children of the
relationship physically or sexually. According to W. Bradford Wilcox (2011), children who
live with their cohabiting parents are four times more likely to be sexually, physically or
emotionally abused than their peers living with married parents.
Moreover, cohabitation lead to a lot of problems of children born to cohabiting
parents. According to an online article (Unwed relationship are inferior to marriage in
general. 2010), 20 percent of children are born to cohabiting parents, however, about one-
third of those will remain with both parents through their childhood. This is partially
because cohabiting couples are more likely to separate after the birth of a child as men feels
this limits their independence. As mention before, cohabitants who finally married are more
likely to get divorced. Thus, children experience a series of interruptions in their family life.
This can have negative effects on their emotional and education development (Unwed
relationship are inferior to marriage in general. 2010).

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