Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collection
'SHACKING UP' STRIKES OUT
BY DEBRA GASKILL May 2, 2000
Editor, Kettering-Oakwood Times (Dayton Ohio)

There's been a lot of flack lately about what the television show
"Who Wants To Marry a Multi-millionaire" did to the institution of
marriage. Even on these pages, the fact that Darva Conger and Rick
Rockwell would choose television as a matchmaking device has been
taken to task.

I'm of a different mind. I don't think that what two shallow people
used as a method to get down the aisle matters - for centuries people
have married for reasons other than love - to create dynasties,
preserve or create family fortunes, are just a few.

To me, what threatens the institution of marriage more than any
over-rated TV show is a trend 20 years ago I would have vigorously
supported: cohabitation.

The number of couples cohabiting has risen from 439,000 in 1960 to
4.2 million in 1998. According to an article in the March 18 USA Today,
living together is gradually replacing marriage and the results of a
University of Chicago study show that it's not a good thing.

In the 60s and 70s, when my own parents divorce racked my heart and
my life, I would have said unquestionably that cohabitation was a
good thing. If you love someone, what does a piece of paper have
to do with making it better?

But after seeing so many of my women friends walk away from live-in
relationships with nothing more than their toothbrush and a broken
heart, a piece of paper has plenty to do with it.

According to Linda Waite, author of the upcoming book The Case For
Marriage, says that the live-ins are in general, less sexually
faithful, less financially well-off and less happy than married
couples.

According to the Marriage Project at Rutgers University,
cohabitation now proceeds 50 percent of all marriages. Waite's
research shows that 48 percent of those folks are at a higher rate
for divorce than those who didn't live together beforehand.

Her research has found that cohabiting is a better deal for men
than women, who often find themselves with the responsibilities
of marriage without the legal protections. That goes back to my
grandfather, the dairy farmer's expression: "Why buy the cow when
you get the milk for free?"

And largely, that's what I've seen happen to my friends. And when
children have been involved, it gets even uglier.

I'm certainly not advocating that women get married simply to
accumulate physical possessions and then walk out with half.

Today's increased economic freedom has given many women a reason
to not get married. One of my dearest friends, who is in her 70s,
has been single all her life simply because she had the power of
the family trust fund behind her. And in the 50s, when she was
pursuing a career on network soap operas and in New York theaters,
she was often able to make choices that her married friends were not.

So when women who ostensibly don't have to get married choose to
cohabit, I have to wonder.

Today I see tying the knot in a church filled with friends and
family as being willing to do all it takes to keep this relationship
going and that, through the good and the bad, you're telling your
partner and all witnesses present that you're there for the duration.

On the other hand, most young people today are not being taught
the fundamentals of making a relationship successful - I'll have
to say that I wasn't either. It's more than just teaching kids
about keeping themselves safe during sex. It's about teaching them
about keeping their self-respect safe and intact.

That's a bigger social failure than letting a couple cohabit and
maybe that's where we should have started.



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