DEFINITION:
Cohabitation can be defined as an arragenment in which two people who are not married but are romantically/ emotionally/ physically involved with one another, live together on a long term or permanent basis.
With cohabitation and marraige having similar traits, marriage comes with a big commitment and cohabitation has become more and more popular throughout the years. The increased interest in cohabitation over marraige may stem from the fear of collapse of a marraige such as having to obtain a divorce and the legal sanctions that are intertwined.
Many also seem to fear divorce for a wide variety of reasons including psychological, emotional, and economic hardships. The arragnment that cohabition provides allows for similar benfits of marraige without the potential pain of divorce.
However, with the fear of a collapsed marraige research continues to show that marraige has measureable benefits. These benefits, unlike cohabitation, include both physical and mental.Married people appear to have better health and live longer than unmaried people.
So then what we must ask ourselves in how does cohabitation measure up to marraige?
Both cohabitation and marraige have many similarities but also posses many differences with pros and cons to each aspect of commitment. An implied level of commitment is associated with marraige which often seems unappealing with younger relationships. However, relationships vary from case to case and deciding to marry is a personal choice rather than a social choice which we are lead to believe.
Cohabitation
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development reports:
"Cohabitation, once rare, is now the norm: The researchers found that more than half (54 percent) of all first marriages between 1990 and 1994 began with unmarried cohabitation. They estimate that a majority of young men and women of marriageable age today will spend some time in a cohabiting relationship."
By: Angela Watkins