Cohabitation on the Rise

Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collectio n

Cohabitation still on rise nationally

By Cheryl Wetzstein THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The 1988 movie comedy "Twins," in which Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito play
long-lost twin brothers, contains a scene that has become increasingly typical in America today.
     "I think we should move in together," says Mr. DeVito's girlfriend, played by actress
Chloe Webb.
"I don't want to get married and it's not that I want to keep track of you,"
she adds over his protests. "I just want to live with you. Hey, it'd be fun!"

At one time in America, such an invitation would have been scandalous. Unmarried couples who lived together
were said to be "living in sin" or "shacking up." Cohabiting was illegal throughout the country
until about 1970. It remains illegal in 12 states, although the laws are rarely, if ever, enforced.

But the number of unwed couples living together stood at a record of more than 4.1
million as of March 1997, the Census Bureau said last month.

That is up from 3.96
million couples the previous year -- and a quantum leap from the 430,000 cohabiting couples the
bureau counted in 1960.

Experts say people live together primarily to solidify their love
and commitment to each other, albeit informally. Most intend to marry; only 13 percent of
cohabitors don't expect to marry, one study found.

Research, however, indicates that, for
many couples, moving in doesn't lead to "happily ever after": Forty percent of cohabiting
couples never make it to the altar. And of the 60 percent who do marry, more than half divorce.

Cohabiting partners are more unfaithful and fight more often than married couples,
according to studies compiled by the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, a
traditional family-values group in Rockford, Ill.

Still, the number of cohabiting couples is
likely to grow, say such experts as Joseph F. Coates, president of the World Future Society, a
Bethesda-based research group.

As the children of the baby boomers come of age, they're
likely to continue the trend of deferring marriage while searching for a partner, says Mr. Coates.
This will lead to more cohabitation and "nontraditional" families.

Analyst Robert Knight of
the Family Research Council says that until people discover that living together has pitfalls, it
won't wane in popularity.

Cohabiting has been portrayed with "careful neutrality" in the
media, and Hollywood celebrities who move in and out with each other are treated as if that's
normal behavior, says Mr. Knight, author of "Age of Consent: The Rise of Relativism and
Corruption of Popular Culture."

"Until we hit bottom and ... see the damage" that
cohabiting does to adults, children and society, it's likely that large numbers of people will
continue to live together, he concludes.

The Census Bureau finds that cohabiting is most
popular in the 24-35 age group, with 1.6 million couples. The next highest number of couples --
931,000 -- are in the under-25 age group.

Sixty percent of cohabitors live with someone
who has never married.

Single people live together because they are trying to find a partner
and don't know a better way to do it, says Mr. Coates, the futurist.

With the exception of a
few "empty, vacuous" resources, "nowhere does any institution in society -- schools, churches,
family, whatever -- help you pick a mate," he says.

Warren Farrell, the San Diego-based
author of "Why Men Are the Way They Are," says living together is a good idea "for a short
period of time."

"To make the jump from dating, when we put our best foot forward, to
being married" without showing each other the "shadow side of ourselves" is to "not treat
marriage seriously," he says.

Research finds live-in relationships are highly sexual.

Cohabiting couples have the most sexual intercourse -- an average of 7.4 times a month for
live-in men, compared with 6.8 times a month for husbands, researcher Linda Waite recently told
a conference on marriage.

Married couples, however, score higher when asked if the sex
is emotionally and physically satisfying, says Mrs. Waite. Spouses invest more emotionally in
each other, she explains.

According to the Howard Center, studies about cohabiting
couples also find that:

·Sixty percent of couples eventually marry, but most of the rest split up within a few years. Only
1 in 10 couples are still cohabiting after five years, say University of Wisconsin professors Larry
Bumpass and James Sweet.
· More than half (57 percent) of cohabitors who marry get divorced
within 10 years. This compares with 30 percent of married couples who didn't live together first,
say Messrs. Bumpass and Sweet.
·Cohabitors have higher levels of conflict and abuse, and the
highest rates of severe domestic violence. This is because live-in couples are often estranged
from extended family and are less likely to have clear division of responsibilities and duties,
researchers say.
·Cohabitors cheat on their partners more often than spouses. One study found
that 68.6 percent of cohabiting men had one sexual partner in the last year, compared with 95.8
percent of husbands. Another study found similar behavior in cohabiting women.

     Living together has its own set of rules, write lawyers Toni Ihara and Ralph Warner of
Berkeley, Calif., the authors of "The Living Together Kit: A Legal Guide for Unmarried
Couples."

Cohabiting couples benefit at tax time because they can avoid the higher tax
rates (the so-called "marriage penalty") that married couples pay.

But live-in couples must
beware of mixing bank accounts, co-signing loans and buying property together. Keeping
properties separate is the best way to keep a lover's creditors from coming after you, advise Miss
Ihara and Mr. Warner, who married recently after living together for 19 years.

(A big
reason for their marriage, the couple wrote, was that their 6-year-old daughter was being teased
that because her parents "weren't married," she "couldn't have been born.")

Rarely a day
goes by without Laura Schlessinger, host of the nationally syndicated "Dr. Laura" radio show,
scolding someone for "shacking up with your honey."

It's the "ultimate female
self-delusion," Mrs. Schlessinger says, listing cohabiting as one of the "Ten Stupid Things
Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives" in her book of the same name.

"Dating -- not living
in -- is supposed to be about learning and discerning" about a prospective mate, she says.

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