Preview

The Benefits of Cohabitation

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
801 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Benefits of Cohabitation
Cohabitation also called consensual union or de facto marriage; refer to unmarried heterosexual couples living together in an intimate relationship. Until recently, cohabitation as such is not a new phenomenon, there have experienced rapid growth in their cohabitation rates, particularly those in Europe. However, it is often seen as entailing fewer responsibilities at the legal, economic, and even emotional levels, so the author of the article thinks that the disadvantages of cohabitation are more than benefits.
Actually, what are the reasons made the author think that? And what are the disadvantages? In the article, it shows the characteristics define the essential boundaries between cohabitation and married, such as age, fertility, stability, social acceptance, and state recognition. In the addition, there are 3 main consequences of cohabitation; there are marital stability, gender equality, and children.
In marital equality, the author would intuitively expect marriages preceded by cohabitation to be more stable than those not preceded by cohabitation. However, cohabitation negatively influences the quality and longevity of marriages. People who living together generally have individualistic attitudes that make them less committed to marital union and more likely to seek divorce in response to marital problems. It is because it emphasizes individual needs and demonstrates that there are alternatives to marriage. In gender quality, cohabitation is often perceived as a trial marriage, women may select men who are willing to share domestic work. Although cohabitors profess more liberal gender attitudes, the reality is a different matter. Those children live in a cohabitation household are stresses the importance of understanding the effects. Cohabitating household have fewer economic resources than married household. Moreover, children in cohabitating households are likely to experience family instability because many cohabitation relationships terminate.
In my

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In order to assess reasons for the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation; it is necessary to first establish the term marriage and cohabitation. Marriage is traditionally conceived to be a legally recognized relationship, between two consenting adults, that carries certain rights and obligations. Cohabitation is an arrangement whereby couples who are not legally married live together in partnership within the common law. Cohabitation has become so widespread that the term itself is now rarely used. I will now critically examine the changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation in the last 40 years or so.…

    • 929 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Your life can set up a disaster or can make it worth so much. In David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s article “The State of Our Union,” the topic of marriage and divorce are discussed. This paper shows and discusses the chances of divorce, the statistics on cohabitation, and economic benefits of being married. This paper is a summary of the article. This topic is important because it affects our everyday lives (Popenoe and Whitehead 390-402).…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Examine Reasons for Change in the Patters of Marriage and Cohabitation in the last 40 years…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As stated in our text, various factors can bind married couples together, such as economic interdependencies, legal, social and moral constraints, relationship, and amongst other things. In the recent years some of these factors have diminished their strengths. The modern generation sees marriage in a different perspective altogether. Individuals today feel they are stable independently, they do not need to rely on their spouse for emotional or financial support. Many are career driven and soar to conquer their dreams over settling down with a family. Such untraditional views have increased divorce rates.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the past forty years marriage, divorce and cohabitation rates have fluctuated significantly. For example, the number of divorces has increased from 27,000 in 1961 to 153,000 by 2006, whilst the Telegraph newspaper reported that ‘one in six people are cohabiting as marriage rates decline’. Why is this? There are multiple reasons for these varying statistics.…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mr Josh Gallagher

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are many reason for changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation due to many significant social attitude changes such as secularisation, there are also many more that affect marriage and cohabitation but one that has affected the pattern mostly is feminism, this is shown in a survey that shows in the last 40 years the number of marriages has dropped enormously by up to one hundred thousand marriages and is still declining whereas the cohabitation rate has increased dramatically by 50%. These outline one of the many reasons for changing patterns in marriage and cohabitation.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cohabitation is an arrangement where two people who are not married live together in an intimate relationship, usually an emotionally and/or sexually intimate one, on a long term or permanent one. Before 1970, cohabitation was illegal in certain countries, like America. But due to a change in the law, Cohbitation is now a common way of living, all over the world. As well as sex/birth outside of marriage, leaving at least 50% to 60% of couples cohabitating, this started in the late 1990s. This lead to the decline of traditional nuclear families as people want to live in companionship because nearly half the amount of marriages now end in divorce, as well as cohabitating being cheaper, easier and less hassle. The new right see the decline in the traditional nuclear family and increase on family diversity as negative trends on modern society. From the new right perspective, these changes are the cause of many social problems in Britain today.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cohabitation has increased as well, as there has been a decline in stigma attached to it. Couples may decide to live together before considering marriage and children. The younger generation is more likely to accept cohabitation than older generations, this is linked to one of the Rapoport’s family diversities, generational diversity.…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Racism In The Great Gatsby

    • 1392 Words
    • 6 Pages

    But generally fruitful person is able to receive rewards and these come in the form of subsidies for married couples who have dependants. For those with families that deviate from the norm, penalties include the legal requirement to support one’s family, and legal and monetary requirements that make divorce expensive. In addition to that, the supposition that married people live more inexpensively as compared to singles may act as a guide to two single people getting bigger support: cohabitation principles, giving people who live together preferential treatment, making them feel married is a technique used to ensure fair play with married…

    • 1392 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    We typically commit one person at a time. From an evolutionary perspective, monogamous pairing makes sense (parents who cooperated to nurture children more often passed on their genes to future generation). Bonds of love are most satisfying and enduring with a similarity of interests and values, emotional and material spot, and intimate self-disclosure. Those who commit with marriage more often endure, esp. after age 20. The divorce rate is 2x higher than 40 years ago, reflecting women's lessened economic dependence and people's rising expectations. Studies show that those who live together before marriage have higher rates of divorce and marital dysfunction because cohabiters tend to be initially less committed to the ideal of enduring marriage and then they become even less supporting during the…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1960 less than a half a million people cohabitated. Today that number is closer to five million people along with another half a million same sex couples living together. During the 1990s fifty-six percent of the marriages that occurred were preceded by living together first. There is greater than a fifty percent chance that a woman will marry if she has lived with the man for more than five years. More than half of high school seniors’ believe that it is a good idea to live together before marriage. If you are divorced you are more likely to cohabitate. There are advantages to living together before you are married. Economically it may provide a better life for the two people to be able share household expenses. People who are on public assistance may lose that assistance if they are married. College students may choose to live with their significant other secretly as to not lose their parents assistance. It also provides people with a way to share a life without the legal entanglements of marriage. Some people believe that cohabitation will strengthen their relationships and eventually lead to marriage. Other studies show that living together first show a divorce rate twice as high after ten years of marriage. Cohabitation may not actually be the cause of divorce though. Typically people who with less traditional views of marriage cohabitate together. Because they already value the idea less that may be what leads to eventual…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Goodwin, P., & Mosher, C. A. (2010). Marriage and cohabitation in the United States: A statistical portrait based on Cycle 6 (2002) of the National Survey of Family Growth. Washington: National Center for Health Statistics.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Jessica

    • 1847 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Conflicting studies on the effect of cohabitation on subsequent marriage have been published. In countries where the majority of people disapprove of unmarried individuals living together, or a minority of the population cohabits before marriage then marriages resulting from cohabitation are more prone to divorce. But in a study on European countries, those where around half of the population cohabits before marriage, cohabitation is not selective of divorce-prone individuals, and no difference in couples that have cohabited before and after marriage is observed.[30][31] In countries such as Italy, the increased risk of marital disruption for people who experienced premarital cohabitation can be entirely attributed to the selection of the most divorce-prone into cohabitation.[32]…

    • 1847 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Examine the reasons for the change in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation in the last 40 years (24 marks)…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Six Thinking Hats

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages

    White hat: a recent research in Hanoi shows that 6.5% of 691 students surveyed cohabit. Students who are less interactive have the highest percentage of cohabitation. 47.1% cohabiting students think they have permission of parents, 45.1% of those live together over one year. 100% have sexual relations and only 48% have safe sex. 43% abort when getting pregnant and just 36% get married. The relationship ending is over 90%. The reason for cohabitation is to spend more time together, to share the expense, to have sex, to be up to date etc. The indirect reason is because of the sex revolution of 1970s in Western world.…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays