Once upon a time, living together before marriage was almost unheard of. ‘Living in sin’ they called it.
Over the years, the stigma has given way to a new, more open-minded, approach. Let’s take a look at what the cohabitation before marriage statistics are telling us.
How Prevalent is it for Unmarried Couples to Live Together?
According to Pew Research statistical data, a growing percentage of couples in America are opting to live together outside of marriage. And according to another study being sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development an estimated 60 to 70 percent of couples today will live together before marriage.
In theory, cohabitation allows the couple to test whether they are compatible before making a more permanent commitment. Sounds logical, but is it true?
How Does Living Together Before Marriage Affect Marital Success Rates?
The First Statistics
Over ten years ago a US Census data analysis project showed that couples who lived together before marriage actually had higher divorce rates than couples who had not done so. That caused a stir amongst certain old-fashioned folks and religiously inclined people. Finally, there was empirical evidence that seemed to prove ‘living in sin‘ is bad for marriage.
Perhaps a nominal amount of people were influenced by those findings, but the overall trend did not change. As mentioned above, the percentage of couples living together outside of marriage still grew significantly.
Recent Statistics
Former statistical findings are being challenged by a more recent data analysis. Newer data from the Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention suggest that living together before marriage is not as crippling as the earlier data suggested, one popularly quoted researcher claims that living together before marriage has almost no negative effect at all.
These more recent statistical findings seem to belie the traditional claims. Living together before marriage does not necessarily lead to a higher chance of divorce. However, the data neither suggests living together before marriage is beneficial either.
The statistics discussed above seem to suggest that it doesn’t matter whether couples live together outside of marriage or not. And considering the added economic and convenience benefits over traditional dating, the option continues to entice and begs the question ‘Why get married?’
Redefining the Issue
From any angle one views the statistics, divorce rates are astronomical. Which suggests that the question of, ‘whether living together before marriage is a formula for success or not’, is not the essential issue. No matter what, it seems, the majority of marriages do not, and will not, succeed. And the question we should be asking is “Why?”
In a recent study, in the United States, almost 40% of participants considered marriage obsolete. Curiously, a similar percentage of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Could it be that society’s trivial attitude toward marriage is directly related to the overwhelming number of marriages that fail?
Let’s hear your voice in the comments below.
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