Manuscript version.

Official copy appears in the following source:

Niehuis, S., Lee, K.-H., & Oblad, T. (2013). Cohabitation before marriage. In R. E. Emery & G.
J. Golson (Eds.), Cultural sociology of divorce: An encyclopedia (pp. 276-280). Sage
Publications. doi: 10.4135/9781452274447.n101

Cohabitation Before Marriage (As a Risk for Divorce)

Overview
Premarital cohabitation was not common during the early 20th century in both the United States and
Europe. From the 1960s onward cohabitation became more frequent and the norm on both continents.
Early on, researchers believed premarital cohabitation to be positive for the development of marital
relationships. However, empirical studies showed that premarital cohabitation was negatively associated
with marital stability. Throughout the past three decades research continued to show an increased risk of
divorce for individuals who cohabited prior to marriage, especially individuals who cohabited several
times with various partners before getting married. Studies showed that premarital cohabiters faced a
46%-80% higher risk of separation and divorce. Social scientists have proposed several hypotheses as to
why cohabiters are at an increased risk for marital instability, such as the selectivity hypothesis, the
cohabitation experience hypothesis, and the cohort hypothesis.

Historical Trends
The impact of premarital cohabitation on marital success or failure was not studied during the first half of
the 20th century. The reason is quite obvious: Premarital cohabitation occurred infrequently, both in the
United States and in Northern Europe, during that time. This changed, however, during the 1960s, when
established norms concerning sexual and marital relationships were questioned and, consequently,
underwent considerable change. In 1950 about 50,000 unmarried people in the US were cohabiting; by
1997, 4 million Americans cohabited with a partner of the opposite sex. Between 2005-2007, roughly
66% of women in the US reported having cohabited prior to their first marriage. Similar trends could also
be found in European countries. Thus, it is fair to say that premarital cohabitation has now become an
integral part of the typical courtship process in Western, industrialized, cultures.

Premarital Cohabitation and the Risk of Divorce

Researchers observing this rise in cohabitation became increasingly interested in how this new trend
might affect marital success. Early writings assumed that premarital cohabitation might have a positive
effect on marital relationships. First, it was thought that it might provide couples with enough information
about the partner to serve as a screening device, weeding out those couples that were not compatible. As a
consequence, cohabiting couples should be better adjusted than couples who did not cohabit premaritally.
Second, cohabitation would confront couples with many of the issues traditionally experienced during
marriage, such as role expectations, negotiation of household tasks, and conflicting career expectations.
Relatedly, cohabiters would gain experience coping with and adjusting to these situations before actually
getting married.

However, research did not support cohabitation as beneficial. In fact, some research suggested opposite
effects. There were indications that premarital cohabitation might be negatively associated with the
success of marital relationships. The diverse findings aroused the interest of researchers who continued to
study premarital cohabitation using larger samples and employing more sophisticated statistical analyses.
Even in these more refined studies, results continued to show premarital cohabitation having a
significantly negative association with marital adjustment and stability.
The negative association between premarital cohabitation and marital success drew the attention of many
researchers worldwide, since the number of individuals cohabiting premaritally was still rising in Western
cultures. Research during the 1980s and 1990s in the US, Canada, Sweden and Australia produced further
evidence linking premarital cohabitation to higher rates of marital dissolution than in couples who
married without cohabiting. Although a small number of studies found no difference in marital stability
and satisfaction between couples who did or did not live together prior to marriage, the association
between cohabitation and divorce generally held even after controlling for religiosity, length of
cohabitation, age at marriage, premarital pregnancy, premarital birth, birth cohort, education, and other
sociocultural variables. Furthermore, the effect is strong; many studies indicate that couples who
cohabited premaritally face a 46%-80% higher risk of separation and divorce than couples who did not.

Reasons for the Effect of Premarital Cohabitation on Risk of Divorce and Marital Instability
The strong evidence of a negative relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital success has
left social scientists puzzled, and led to many speculations. One explanation proposed by a number of
researchers was the “selectivity hypothesis,” which says that the negative relationship is due to the kind of
individuals who chose to cohabit before marriage. Couples who decide to cohabit prior to marriage might
be different in ways that bear negatively upon marital success from those people who do not live with
their eventual partner. For example, couples who cohabit premaritally may be less committed to the
institution of marriage and might have more liberal and approving attitudes toward divorce. The
differences in attitudes, rather than the experiences of cohabitation, thus, may lead to a greater willingness
to dissolve marriages that are no longer satisfying. Furthermore, couples who chose to cohabit
premaritally might be “poor marriage material.” Researchers found that premarital cohabiters are more
likely to have personality problems, to abuse alcohol or other drugs, to be financially irresponsible, to
have problems with the law, and to have difficulties holding a job. Other scientists have posited that
cohabiting couples are often pressured by family members and friends into marrying, which, in turn,
might result in marriages that are less stable compared to those where partners married each other because
they wished to do so. Finally, some researchers proposed that premarital cohabiters might have attitudes
akin to (or approving of) Gidden’s concept of a “pure relationship.” Pure relationships are those formed
voluntarily by both partners and that are maintained only as long as they have intrinsic value to the
partners. Compared to traditional marriages, pure relationships are more democratic and egalitarian in
nature. They tend to be more attractive to couples in which both partners are pursuing a career. Spouses
involved in pure relationships are less apt to stay in an unhappy marriage for social or economic reasons.
Because the continuity of the relationship is based on partners’ current evaluation of its personal value,
each partner can discontinue the relationship at any time. As a result, pure relationships are more unstable
than traditional marriages.

Some scientists found premarital cohabiters to be less committed to the institution of marriage than were
couples who did not cohabit premaritally and to have lower-quality marital relationships. In these studies,
however, premarital cohabitation continued to be negatively associated with marital success, even with
selectivity factors (such as education, income, premarital pregnancy and birth, church attendance,
religious preference, age at marriage, race, age differences between partners, relationship duration,
partners’ employment status, sex-role traditionalism, and presence of dependent children) controlled for.

While the selectivity hypothesis has received much attention, a second, experience of cohabitation,
hypothesis has been formulated and tested. Could it be that the experience of premarital cohabitation itself
has a negative causal impact on marital success by shaping individual’s attitudes and values about the
permanence of marriage? One study found that premarital cohabiters brought into the relationship more
nontraditional and divorce-tolerant attitudes than couples who did not cohabit prior to marriage. When
initial nontraditional attitudes were controlled for, the experience of premarital cohabitation created
significantly more acceptance of divorce in couples’ relationships. That is, couples increasingly came to
believe that divorce is an option for an unhappy or dissatisfying relationship. Researchers have speculated
that this might be so, because premarital cohabiters have learned that alternatives to marriage exist. Other
research suggests that some couples move from periodically spending the night while dating to
cohabitation and possibly to marriage eventually, merely via inertia, without actually making a conscious
decision to advance the relationship (what Scott Stanley has termed “sliding” vs. “deciding”). Based on
commitment theory, researchers have argued that some people may move from cohabitation to marriage
even when they realize the relationship is not ideal, because they perceive high costs of leaving the
cohabitation relationship.

In the mid-1990s, researchers wondered whether the negative relationship between premarital
cohabitation and marital stability was the result of cohort effects. They argued that the effect should be
more pronounced among earlier cohorts, for whom cohabitation was a rare occurrence, and weaker
among recent cohorts, for whom it became more normative. Studies have found various degrees of
support for a cohort effect, with the most recent ones suggesting that the risk of marital separation has
steadily declined until 1988, and that a reverse pattern is now beginning to emerge, such that couples who
marry today without having cohabited prior to marriage are possibly at a higher risk for divorce than
couples who did cohabit before tying the knot. These findings are preliminary, however.

Finally, some researchers have suggested that the quality of the cohabiting relationship (e.g., in terms of
commitment, communication, and relationship functioning) and the meaning cohabitation has for couples
(e.g., as a step in the courtship process, as an alternative to marriage, or as another form of singlehood)
may be important and may have differential effects on relationship happiness and stability. For instance, a
recent study shows that the risk of divorce is greater for couples who cohabit prior to marriage without
having been engaged first, as compared to couples who get engaged first and then enter cohabitation as
the final stepping stone on the road to the altar. Thus, these recent studies suggest that a deeper
exploration of the connections between attitudinal, interactional, and macrosocial variables may yield a
greater understanding of the negative effects of premarital cohabitation on marital stability. Recent studies
have found some additional factors that may influence the detrimental relationship between cohabitation
and divorce. Their findings suggest that once the number of cohabitation partners, premarital and marital
relationship factors, the existence of a marriage plan, and sociodemographic information are taken into
account, the negative effect of cohabitation on divorce diminishes, if not disappears. Furthermore, in
women at least, there is some evidence that cohabitation increases the risk of divorce only among
Caucasian spouses but not among Mexican-American or African-American spouses.

Sylvia Niehuis
Texas Tech University

Kyung-Hee Lee
Texas Tech University

Tim Oblad
Texas Tech University

See Also: Commitment, Children of Divorce and Fear of Commitment, Relationships (in culture of
divorce), Risk Factors of Divorce (overview)

Further Readings

Guzzo, Karen B. “Marital Intentions and the Stability of First Cohabitations.” Journal of Family Issues, v.
30/2 (2009).
Hewitt, Belinda, and De Vaus, David. “Change in the Association Between Premarital Cohabitation and
Separation, Australia 1945-2000.” Journal of Marriage and Family, v.71 (2009).

Jose, Anita, O’Leary, Daniel, and Moyer, Anne. “Does Premarital Cohabitation Predict Subsequent
Marital Stability and Marital Quality? A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Marriage and Family, v.72 (2010).

Kennedy, Sheela. & Bumpass, Larry. “Cohabitation and Children’s Living Arrangements: New Estimates
from the United States. Demographic Research, v.19 (2008).

Niehuis, Sylvia, Huston, Ted. L., and Rosenband, Reva. “From Courtship to Marriage: A New
Developmental Model and Methodological Critique.” Journal of Family Communication, v.6 (2006).

Smock, Pamela, Casper, Lynne, and Wyse, Jessica. Nonmarital cohabitation: Current knowledge and
future directions for research. Population Studies Research Report 09-648. Ann Arbor, MI: Population
Studies Centers, 2008.

Stanley, Scott M., Rhoades, Galena K., Amato, Paul R., Markman, Howard J., and Johnson, Christine A.
“The Timing of Cohabitation and Engagement: Impact of First and Second Marriages.” Journal of
Marriage and Family, v.72 (2010).