Cohabitation

One topic that we discussed in class was cohabitation. I think it is a really interesting subject. Society views cohabitation as a good idea and that it lets a couple test the waters before they actually make a commitment to marry. It is on the rise and I really did not know much about cohabitation and its effects on a couple.
As part of class I did research on cohabitation and found some interesting results.


There are four reasons why people cohabitate:

1. Precursor to marriage - have definite plans to marry, expressed a high degree of satisfaction with and commitment to the relationship

2. Coresidential daters - disliked living the single life and opted to move in with someone even though they were uncertain about how long term the relationship might be

3. Trial cohabitors - intended to marry but they are not sufficiently committed to their current partner to expect it to end up with marriage

4. Alternative to marriage - high commitment to partner but were not interested in getting married


Benefits for being married over cohabitation: 

• Better quality relationship
• Lower rates of violence
• Less health problems
• Greater happiness
• less depression
• higher levels of commitment to the relationship
• Children are less likely to experience parental separation
• Less money spent on alcohol and tobacco and more spent on education
• less instability

The main point that I got out of this is that cohabitation really is of no value to the relationship of a couple.  Society makes it seem like cohabitation is a good idea, but according to research it probably is not a good thing to do.