Cohabitation Essay

Marriage can be a wonderful experience. You are permanently tied to the one person you love the most. You get to move in with them and go through the daily struggles every couple deals with. But what happens when you just don’t plain get along? When you start to notice every little thing about that person that bothers you? When you are not able to work things out because you have never been in this situation before? Divorce happens. A great way to know if your partner is really the one for you is cohabitation, when couples move in together before marriage. Though this may be opposed by many religious groups and conservatives, it is more common now than ever. According to the 2002 Gallup poll, approximately 37% of couples stated that they had lived together before marriage, nearly doubling the percentage in the early 90’s. Cohabitating couples get to live the marriage life without officially tying the knot. Cohabiting couples typically take upon themselves all the responsibilities and advantages of marriage, such as sexual fidelity, sharing of property, raising children, and so on. All that is missing is formal legality. Some people believe that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than couples who do not. This has become so established among researchers it is called “the cohabitation effect.” Other people believe that cohabitation is beneficial because you get to know this person before you decide to commit yourself for the rest of your life and if it doesn’t work out you don't have to spend money on a divorce. Cohabitation can be great at time because you can do a trial run marriage before you spend the rest of your life with this person and it helps determine whether the relationship is meant to be. This can be mistaken, in fact; numerous studies have shown the opposite to be true. The rate of divorce is about 50 percent higher among those who live together before marriage.