Family Focus on

National Council on Family Relations

Family Focus on . . . Cohabitation Issue FF42

“Sliding vs. Deciding”: understanding a mystery by Scott M. Stanley [email protected], Research Professor and Co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies, and Galena K. Rhoades, senior researcher at the Center for Marital and Family Studies, University of Denver

IN FOCUS //

The Commitment Continuum: Cohabitation and Commitment among African American Couples page F4 On the History of Cohabitation

page F7

Living Together or Living Apart Together: New Choices for Old Lovers page F9 Cohabitation and the Rise in Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing page F11 Divorce-Proofing Marriage: Young Adults’ Views on the Connection between Cohabitation and Marital Longevity page F13 Nohabitation: a Less than Ideal Situation page F15

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Here’s a mystery. What is one of the primary things young people believe that they can do before marriage that will “up” their odds of lasting love?1 Hint. It’s the same as the answer to this question: What used to be rare but has now become the norm in couple development?2 The answer to both, of course, is cohabitation. There are many things one could say represent fundamental shifts in how people do relationships in industrialized nations, and the increase in the prevalence of cohabitation instead of marriage or cohabitation prior to marriage would be near the top of the list. The mystery is this. The belief that cohabiting prior to marriage lowers one’s odds of divorce has no evidence going for it, yet it is a strongly held belief. The popular media seem to publish front page articles on cohabitation regularly. In USA Today, there have been one or two major stories on cohabitation nearly every year for the past 7 years. While there may be many reasons for this, one reason is that the main findings in this field don’t behave according to common expectations. It makes for interesting reading. The “facts” about cohabitation just do not line up well with the beliefs most people, especially young people, hold. Virtually every published study that has examined premarital cohabitation finds it to be associated with greater, rather than lower, risk for problems in marriage.3 This association is called the “cohabitation effect.” We know of no published study that shows a benefit of premarital cohabitation for marital outcomes and many published studies showing added risk. (Daniel Lichter does have some evidence for a positive effect

Scott Stanley

Galena Rhoades

but we are concerned about the age of the sample in terms of relevance for the current scene.) For a sampling of findings on the cohabitation effect, see Figure 1 (page 2). This cohabitation effect just doesn’t make sense to the average person (nor to some non-average people, as well). After all, it’s a very reasonable proposition that living with someone prior to marriage should help one understand better the potential of the relationship, and that should improve one’s odds. In many cases, it no doubt does. But you’d be hard pressed to find data that showed this to be generally true. This constitutes a mystery both for the general public and to researchers. For those whose initial reaction is that it’s not all that mysterious, the main way of understanding these seemingly counterintuitive findings comes down to selection effects. We know very well that, historically, those who cohabited prior to marriage tended to be those who were less conventional in their views about marriage and divorce, and generally, those who tended to be less religious. The main explanation of the cohabitation effect has been that the sliding vs. deciding continued on page F2

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sliding vs. deciding continued from page F1 risk has nothing to do with cohabiting per se and everything to do with who does or does not cohabit. This is a compelling hypothesis and there is evidence in support of part of it. Those who cohabit prior to marriage have, indeed, been shown to differ on these types of variables in study after study. People who cohabit also tend to be people who have been at higher risk for relationships not going so well on a host of other dimensions (e.g., coming from families with parents divorced). The mystery continues, however. A number of studies find evidence of selection, but what is lacking is overwhelming evidence that selection explains all of the risk associated with cohabitation prior to marriage. Enter the mystery. How could something so seemingly harmless be associated with harm? Before we address this question, we should make clear that the other interesting discussion going on in this field is about whether the cohabitation risk will simply disappear over time, regardless of what explains it. The reasoning goes like this. Cohabitation used to be very unconventional but has now become normative. If some of the negative effects of cohabitation prior to marriage are due to the unconventional nature of it (and the stigma attached to living together unmarried), then as it becomes more conventional, we should see a decrease in the association between premarital cohabitation and marital distress or divorce. This perspective makes good sense, but even recent samples show evidence for the cohabitation effect, especially among those who lived together before becoming engaged.5 More importantly, we, along with various colleagues of ours such as Howard Markman, are investigating an alternate theory of the cohabitation effect; one that embraces the concept of selection but also posits an additive, causal element. Inertia In 2004, our team published a finding that was puzzling. We found that premarital cohabitation was associated not only with the usual risks, but also that it was associated with lower levels of husband’s commitment to their wives, years into marriage.6 While one might think measuring commitment could be of crucial importance in understanding something closely related to the development of committed relationships, this had been rarely, if ever, been done before. We began to speculate that there could be a subset of

Premarital cohabitation is associated with: 

More negative communication in marriage (Cohan & Kleinbaum, 2002; Kline et al., 2004; Stanley et al., 2004; Thomson & Colelia, 1992)



Lower levels of marital satisfaction (Nock, 1995; Stafford et al., 2004; Stanley et al., 2004)



The erosion over time of the value/view of marriage and childrearing (Axinn & Barber, 1997; Axinn & Thornton, 1992)



Higher perceived marital instability (Kamp Dush, Cohan, & Amato, 2003; Stafford et al., 2004; Thomas & Colella, 1992)



Lower levels of male commitment to spouse (Rhoades (Kline) et al., 2006; Stanley et al., 2004)



Greater likelihood of divorce (DeMaris & Rao, 1992; Kamp Dush et al., 2003; Philips & Sweeney, 2005; Teachman, 2003; Stanley, Amato, Johnson, & Markman, 2006)

Figure 1: The Cohabitation Effect4

men among those who cohabited premaritally who married someone they would not have married had they never cohabited, thus showing lower commitment in their marriages. The crucial idea here was that cohabiting is more constraining of one’s options in a relationship than dating without sharing a single address. This thinking is almost axiomatic. It simply must be harder to end the average cohabiting relationship than it is to end a dating relationship. Although the level of constraints could vary greatly from couple to couple, the idea of moving out, splitting things and friends up, and finding another place to live must have some greater force of constraint on one’s perceived options for the future of the relationship than the same person would experience during dating. This idea that it is harder to end a cohabiting relationship than a non-cohabiting dating relationship is the essence of the concept of inertia in our work. In physics, inertia pertains to the amount of energy it would take to move an object at rest or redirect and object on one trajectory to another. A rolling ten-ton truck is harder to stop than a VW Bug. The hypothesis is that cohabitation is more of a truck than a bug. We suggest that cohabitation puts the average couple on trajectory toward marriage and that it may be difficult to exit the trajectory, even if the relationship doesn’t have what it takes to make a marriage happy or lasting.

The potential implications of this inertia are great. Young people tend to believe cohabitation is a good test of a relationship, but what they may not realize is that cohabitation may make it harder to break up, even if the relationship fails the test. Of all the reasons for cohabiting, doing so to test the relationship appears to be associated with the lowest relationship quality,7 suggesting that those who believe they need to test their relationships before marriage may have good reasons for desiring a test. The problem is that cohabiting may only make it more likely that a lower quality relationship will result in marriage. Is this way of thinking in opposition to the selection perspective? Not at all. It embraces it. We agree that there are differences between those who cohabit and those who choose not to and that these differences, particularly in terms of religiousness and attitudes about the stability of marriage, can also be linked with risk for marital distress and divorce. Imagine that a person already at risk for marital problems links up with someone else at greater-than-average risk. Let’s call them Bob and Mary. Bob and Mary begin to live together. After all, they like being around each other, they want to spend more time together, and they both believe that cohabitation can do nothing but improve their odds of things working out well in marriage. They believe they will sliding vs. deciding continued on page F3

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sliding vs. deciding continued from page F2 learn important details about one another that will make their decision about marriage a more informed one. They also think that cohabiting will help them learn and develop patterns that could help them out in marriage. But notice what has happened here. Nothing about cohabiting lowers their risk. In fact, cohabiting, for the most part, could only lower the risk for individuals who are committed to breaking up with this person if things are not going as desired. Doubtless, some do just this. But equally doubtless, for others, what cohabitation did is increase the odds of an already high risk relationship continuing. This is consistent with Norval Glenn’s idea of premature entanglements that foreclose adequate searching for the right partner. Sliding vs. Deciding There is straightforward prediction resulting from the reasoning we present here. Those partners who are already clear about and strongly committed to marriage at the time they start living together should not experience the cohabitation effect. In essence, inertia suggests the greatest risk is for those who do not have mutual clarity about the future together because they are increasing the likelihood of marriage before clarifying these important matters of fit, intention, and commitment. By the way, the word “mutual” in that prior sentence is pretty crucial. There are bestselling books on the downside of non-mutual commitment to the future of a relationship—we’re “just not that into” this being a good thing. Conversely, if two people

already know they intend to marry, it is much less likely that cohabitation will increase their odds of staying together because they already determined they would be together. So, we should find less of a cohabitation effect for those who are already committed, such as by being engaged, prior to cohabiting. We have now found evidence to support this essential prediction in four data sets. In each study, those who began living together before they were engaged had lower marital quality than those who were engaged before cohabitation or who did not live together at all premaritally. We are increasingly convinced that there is something protective about having clarified both the fit of a relationship and the mutual commitment to marriage before taking steps like cohabitation or marriage that constrain future options. If being clear about commitment and the future is protective, how do most couples actually begin to cohabit? Colleagues Wendy Manning and Pamela Smock have found that the majority (just over 50%) of cohabiting couples do not report any kind of deliberative process that culminated in cohabiting.8 Rather, most people report that it just sort of happened. One thing led to another and, bingo, the couple was living together. In contrast, commitments are decisions. Commitment can be viewed, in its essence, as making a choice to give up other choices. If most couples “slide” into cohabiting (as well as through other types of transitions), they are not “deciding” at what can be a crucial transition where constraints are increasingly

favoring relationship continuance. Deciding is protective, sliding is not. Deciding clarifies commitment and an intention to follow through on what one has chosen. The prevalence of sliding-type transitions in relationships may play a causal role in undermining the development of the protective elements of commitment. That moves the discussion beyond mere selection into how selection sets in motion relationship development patterns that undermine the development of mutual, strong commitments.

If most couples “slide” into cohabiting, . . . they are not “deciding” at what can be a crucial transition where constraints are increasingly favoring relationship continuance. Does any of this matter for helping people? We could, and eventually will, write a book on this topic. But here are a few thoughts we have about the practice of helping people succeed in their aspirations for lifelong love. First, whatever you believe are the reasons, we know from many studies over decades (including very recent samples) that cohabiting prior to the development of commitment is risky. That means we have a direct way to identify a very large group of individuals at higher risk for problems in their relationships. If we can find them, we can try to reach them to help them lower those risks in any number of ways. Second, we suspect that sliding transitions are inherently risky, whether we’re talking about cohabitation, sex, becoming pregnant, or whatever else you can think of. We have a generation of young people growing up who doesn’t appear to recognize that certain relationship transitions are fundamentally capable of altering their future options in a downward direction. Helping young people (and older ones, too) make decisions about transitions should be a crucial aspect of our relationship education efforts. Third, people do seem intent on doing things that improve their odds. It just so happens that one of the main things they believe will do this, doesn’t. Could couples considering testing their sliding vs. deciding continued on page F4

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The Commitment Continuum: cohabitation and commitment among African American couples by Cassandra Chaney, Ph.D., School of Human Ecology, Family, Child and Consumer Sciences, Louisiana State University, [email protected] The past 30 years has seen cohabitation become a socially-accepted and integral feature in the lives of many African Americans. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2003), approximately 50% of African Americans choose to start families through cohabitation. In the 2003 book, MarriedCouple and Unmarried-Partner Households: 2000, Tavia Simmons and Martin O’Connell noted African Americans are the most likely Americans to cohabit, and more than half of all African American children are born to unmarried parents, many of whom are living together. Interestingly, African Americans

are more likely to cohabit when there is an existing sexual relationship and they are parenting children. In addition, other African Americans use cohabitation as a way to test the extent of their compatibility in order to determine whether they can make a future success of marriage. However, African American men are less likely than White men to marry a woman with whom they are cohabiting, even when he has children with his partner. To support this, several researchers have found that in less than 50% of cases do cohabiting African American couples marry, and when they do, they are more likely to

sliding vs. deciding continued from page F3 relationship with cohabitation be steered instead to think about relationship education as a pathway to better understand their potential? That’s probably a tough sell, but some tough sells are smart to attempt. Author Note: Scott Stanley is a research professor (psychology department) and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver. Galena Rhoades is a senior researcher at the Center for Marital and Family Studies, University of Denver. Stanley and Rhoades (along with Howard Markman and colleagues) are conducting a large sample study of the development of cohabiting relationships funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD: R01HD047564 awarded to Scott Stanley).  Endnotes 1

One source of data supporting this point is: Thornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four decades of trends in attitudes toward family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 1009-1037. 2 Smock, P.J. (2000). Cohabitation in the United States: An appraisal of research themes, findings, and implications. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 1-20. 3 For a review as well as a deeper summary of many of the conceptual points made here, see: Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Markman, H. J. (2006). Sliding vs. Deciding: Inertia and the premarital cohabitation effect. Family Relations, 55, 499 - 509. 4 Most of the full citations for this literature can be found in the previous reference. 5 The most recent in a series of papers where we show this is: Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2008). The pre-engagement cohabitation effect: A replication and extension of previous findings. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 107 - 111. 6 Stanley, S. M., Whitton, S. W., & Markman, H. J. (2004). Maybe I do: Interpersonal commitment and premarital or nonmarital cohabitation. Journal of Family Issues, 25, 496-519. 7 Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2009). Couples’ reasons for cohabitation: Associations with individual well-being and relationship quality. Journal of Family Issues, 30, 233 - 258. 8 Manning, W. D., & Smock, P. J. (2005). Measuring and modeling cohabitation: New perspectives from qualitative data. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 989 - 1002.

divorce than White couples that cohabited before marriage. It is unclear whether the demise of these relationships is caused by premarital cohabitation, the attitudes demonstrated by the individuals in these Cassandra Chaney relationships, external stressors such as unemployment or underemployment, or a combination of these factors. However, much of the concern for strengthening the relationships of cohabiting Black couples has been linked to the outcomes for African American children. In the 1997 book Family Life in Black America, Robert Taylor, James Jackson, and Linda Chatters revealed Black children reared by cohabiting parents are more likely to be poor, more likely to be unemployed, less likely to have completed high school, and more likely to establish a single-parent home themselves. As a result of these demographic trends, strengthening African American families has become an issue of national concern over the past decade. Perhaps the most notable among these efforts is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration of Children and Families’ Healthy Marriage Initiative, and its subcomponent, the African American Healthy Marriage Initiative (AAHMI), whose goal is to sustain healthy marriage, for those who choose marriage, and support responsible fatherhood, improve child well-being, and strengthen families within the African American Community (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/ aa_hmi/AAHMI.html). When I first became involved with the African American Healthy Marriage Initiative (AAHMI) in 2001, I wondered if commitment was as important commitment continuum continued on page F5

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commitment continuum continued from page F4 to cohabiting Black couples as it was to married Black couples. Because I was reared by married parents, I frequently heard the testimonials of many married African American couples who shared the importance of commitment in their relationships. For many of these couples, commitment was the “glue” that preceded the bliss of the wedding day and motivated them to stay together during bad times. However, because I never had the opportunity to hear the narratives of cohabiting Black couples, I was inextricably drawn to their stories.

a couple’s mental desire to stay together indefinitely; and (2) behaviors from the couple that increase the likelihood that the relationship will continue. Essentially, these definitions of commitment recognize that committed relationships involve both a degree of psychological permanence from both partners and mutual behaviors that contribute to the stability of these relationships. Who were these couples? Before highlighting the commitment stories of the cohabiting African Americans that are the focus of this article, I will provide a brief demographic snapshot of the men and women that shared their relationship stories with me. These couples resided in the south-

In 2004, I conducted intensive collective interviews with 30 cohabiting African American couples in their homes. For the purpose of this article, I will address the importance of commitment among African American couples prior to cohabitation. In order to best examine responses to the question, “What role did commitment play in your decision to live together?” I allowed these couples to share, in their own words, the role of commitment in their decision to live together. However, before this is done, I will highlight the ways that “commitment” has been defined, provide demographic information for the couples featured in this article, shed light on how cohabiting African Americans feel about marriage, and discuss the importance of viewing commitment as a continuum when nurturing stable relationships ern region of the United States and the among cohabiting African Americans. average age of the women and men was 28.27 years and 29.93 years, respectively What is commitment? (age range was 18 – 51 years old). The If you asked 100 people, “What does the term commitment mean to you?” you would average number of children was two, and likely receive a wide array of responses, but 80% of these couples had at least one child. Forty-three percent had at least one biologiprofessionals who study the dynamics of cal child together; 37% had at least one stable relationships have highlighted recurchild from a previous relationship and no ring ways of defining commitment. In the biological children together; and 20% did 1950s book The Sociology of George not have any children. The average level of Simmel, Simmel defined commitment as a education for the women was a high school force that ensures a couple will remain diploma (12.30 years) while the average together and over time commitment belevel of education for the men was slightly comes larger than the initial factors that lower (11.77 years). On average, these drew the couple to one another. In a 1985 Psychology Today article entitled Marriages couples lived together a little over five years (cohabitation range was 3 months – 18 Made to Last, Robert Lauer and Jeanette Lauer defined commitment as the force that years), and 25% had been previously markeeps couples together when one or both of ried. Although the majority of these couples them may desire to leave the relationship. In indicated that they were not engaged (53%), the 1986 book, Relationships and Develop- 47% reported either being engaged for some time or becoming recently engaged. Almost ment, Robert Hinde and Joan Stevenson75% of these couples represented the lowerHinde defined commitment in terms of: (1)

class socioeconomic status, and had median incomes in the $10,000 to $19,999 range. Forty percent (40%) had an annual income of less than $10,000; 33% had an annual income between $10,000 and $19,999; 20% had an income between $20,000 and $29,999; and 7% had an income between $50,000

“What role did commitment play in your decision to live together?” and $59,999. Many of these persons worked as cooks, painters, cashiers, construction workers, nannies, or telemarketers, but 60% were currently unemployed. How cohabiting African American couples feel about marriage Although most of the cohabiting African American men and women in this study had never been married, the overwhelming majority of these couples were reportedly interested in marriage. In fact, when they were asked “Do you plan to get married one day?”, 95% of the cohabiting individuals in this study expressed a desire to one day marry. These results resonate with those in the 1995 book, The Decline in Marriage among African Americans: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Implications by M. Belinda Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan in which a substantial number of African Americans in a national sample also expressed a desire to get married. The role of commitment in African American’s decision to live together Essentially, commitment among cohabiting African Americans prior to cohabitation was based on the following three responses: (1) No Commitment, which indicates commitment played little or no role in the couple’s decision to live together; (2) Attitudinal Change Regarding Commitment, which indicates a change in the couple’s attitude regarding commitment after they began to live together; and (3) High Commitment, which indicates that commitment played a very important role in the couple’s decision to live together. Although the majority of the couples spoke of commitment in terms of an attitudinal change, for the purpose of brevity, I chose a few narratives that I feel best represented each of the aforementioned themes. commitment continuum continued on page F6

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commitment continuum continued from page F5 No Commitment. For Malik, age 45 and Frida, age 30, (all names are pseudonyms) a non-engaged, cohabiting couple of three months, commitment was not a factor in their decision to live together. When asked about the role of commitment in their decision to live together, Malik said, “That’s a trick question there. We don’t have that many commitments right now.” Frida then added, “It was like a spur of the moment thing.” Attitudinal Change Regarding Commitment. For Mona (32) and Michael (36), an engaged couple of eight years, it took time to develop a shared sense of commitment. When asked about the role of commitment in their decision to live together, Mona shared, “Well, we couldn’t do what we wanted to do in someone else’s house and we wanted to be on our own. Get our own house. We together. We got kids. It’s time for us to get on our own but it took time for us to learn what commitment was. It wasn’t there right away though. It took us time to learn how to make each other happy.” In support of Mona’s assessment, Michael shared, “Yeah. It took us time to get there, to that commitment place. To learn what each other likes and don’t like, but we’re on the same page now.”

“It was very important.” Similar to Fred and Sheila’s view, Johnny (51) and Carol (48), a cohabiting couple of 18 years (the longest in the study), considered themselves “married for life.” Commitment was reportedly an extremely important factor in their decision to live together. Johnny shared the following, “Commitment was everything! We had to be committed to helping each other. We had to be committed to loving each other. We had to be committed to raising the children. We had to be really committed in everything! If you ain’t committed, it ain’t no sense in even going cause you just playing around!” In support of her partner’s assessment, Carol shared, “You ain’t committed, you ain’t living right. Your relationship might spoil within any second. It ain’t go last. Period. Ya’ll just there until something else better come along if you ain’t committed. That’s the way it is. You got to be committed! Have to be!”

As with many married couples, the role of commitment in African Americans’ decision to live together will be as varied as the couples themselves. I also learned that although commitment may not have been as important to these couples on the “front end,” or prior to cohabitation, they actively worked toward a shared way of demonstrating commitment after living together. Therefore, programs that seek to support marriage and strong relationships among these couples must acknowledge the role of commitment in these relationships prior to and after cohabitation, because the concerns of these couples will most likely differ. This knowledge can better inform the work of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners who seek to strengthen marriage or cohabiting relationships among African Americans in three ways. For one, for cohabiting couples in which there is little commitment, these couples must recognize any emotional, psychological, and financial consequences for themselves and their children should the relationship end, and make steps to minimize possible risk factors. Also, since it took time for these couples to successfully demonstrate commitment in ways that pleased their partner, it would be beneficial if these couples determined clear expectations for themselves and their partners, prior to cohabitation.

The commitment continuum and relationship stability among cohabiting African Americans After interviewing these couples, I learned two things. First and foremost, I learned that commitment was as important to some High Commitment. For Fred and Sheila cohabiting African Americans as it was to (both 22), an engaged, cohabiting couple of many married African Americans. In fact, I one year, commitment was key. When asked found commitment among cohabiting, Black Finally, high levels of commitment could about the role of commitment in their decicouples to be based on a range of experiences, be encouraged by teaching couples to consion to live together, they replied in unison, or what I call The Commitment Continuum. sistently demonstrate appreciation for their partner’s emotional, financial, and parental contributions. Given the general acceptance of cohabitation, one should expect an increase in the number of African Americans who choose cohabitation as a way to establish Students and new professionals will find great networking, career-building, and families of their own or as a prelude to marinformation-gathering opportunities at the annual conference, November 11-14, in the riage. Essentially, The Commitment ConSan Francisco Bay Area. Go to www.ncfr.org and follow links to the conference web tinuum recognizes that commitment among pages. Here are just some of the sessions and activities: cohabiting African Americans will vary.  secondary data analysis and grounded theory Therefore, when fostering stable relationships among these couples, it is imperative that  faculty/student collaboration researchers, policymakers and practitioners  transitioning from TA to instructor help cohabiting African Americans understand the consequences of non-commitment  job-seeking for themselves and their families, develop  speed networking and career planning more positive attitudes about commitment,  successful student affiliate or solidify their commitment as life-long cohabitators or as an entrée to marriage. As  S/NP Workshop: Family Studies Job Market a result, the relationships of cohabiting,  S/NP Workshop: Applying to Graduate Schools and Programs African Americans, during various stages, may stabilize and grow stronger over time. 

Student/New Professional Activities at the Conference

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On the history of cohabitation by Jan Trost, [email protected], Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden There are, historically, two kinds of cohabitation. The older one is several centuries old and is based upon poverty. The younger one can be said to be built upon freedom. The old variety has been found in, just to mention some areas, the Caribbean Islands (Rodman, 1966), Norway and Sweden (Sundt, 1855), Iceland (Bjørnsson, 1971), and the Andes (Price, 1965). It is mainly characterized by poverty combined with the idea that marriage requires that the couple has a home with furnishings and equipment proper for a home, such as a bed, a table, and kitchen utensils. If the couple does not have all of them—and if they cannot afford the party socially required for the wedding—they cannot marry; some would just wait and some would start living together. Another variation of their decision could be based upon timing. For example, in fishing or agricultural societies, the fish or the crops may have failed one year making it impossible for the couple to celebrate with a good party for relatives and friends. Therefore, the wedding would be postponed. The more modern variety of cohabitation has no connection to economy or the financial situation of the couple. This trend started in the middle of the 1960’s in Scandinavia (Trost, 1975, 1980). The marriage rates were higher than ever and reached a peak in the middle of the 1960s. Suddenly there was a rapid decrease of the marriage rates. In Sweden, for example, the rate dropped during a ten year period to less than half – from 200 to less than 100 per 1,000 not-married women.

Rates

Marriage Rates in

Year

Non-marital cohabitation had arrived as a social movement. In Scandinavia, the phenomenon became a social institution with terminology for the couple as well as for the partners. In the rest of the Western world, the change came somewhat later and at a slower pace—and the terminology lagged behind. Just look at the English term cohabitation which, contrary to the terms in Scandinavia, is no everyday term – it’s more of a sterile construction. The diagram below summarizes the marriage rates in Sweden since 1960. How come? How can we understand this change that not any one of us in the field of family studies had predicted? We were even surprised and did not know what really happened. From my perspective, we can find no sources for the change in the meaning cause-effect. But we might be able to understand. If we look at the 1960s in the Western world, we will find that a lot happened. Let me mention some examples beside the fact that there was more than a decade of rebuilding after World War II. The search for non-coitus related contraceptives was eventually successful and the hormone pill came as well as did the intrauterine device (IUD). Previously only coitus related contraceptives were available.

At about the same time, a new feminist movement started with arguments for equality and equity between women and men. In some countries the relatively short period with homemakers as a social institution started Sweden to more or less rapidly disappear. An example is in Sweden where the government, together with the workforce changes, gave homemakers financial contributions for skilled adult education – quite rapidly, few fulltime homemakers remained. In many countries, TV came at the end of the

1950s and had become a facility in almost all homes, bringing a new source for news and entertainment. For the first time, a war came into the living rooms of families: Jan Trost the Vietnam War. For the first time, people could sit in their homes viewing the horrors of real life, and a geographically distant war was suddenly close. Vigorous demonstrations occurred. Especially in Western Europe, some of the youngsters belonging to the Baby Booms of the 1940s were influenced by neo-Marxism and Maoism and other “radical” movements. Among other things, they were op-

How can we understand this change that not any one of us in the field of family studies had predicted? posed to the nuclear families – a new term invented by the social anthropologist George Peter Murdock and partly misunderstood by the activists. For example, they claimed that the nuclear family was an invention of the capitalists: all these small households needed one refrigerator and one vacuum cleaner which gave the capitalists more money. Larger households were the ideal for the activists. Many of the activists claimed that the Church, mainly Christianity, had invented marriage in order to be able to control people. Therefore one should not marry but just live together. They did not know that marriages and weddings were social institutions long before the beginning of Christianity. In the entire Western world, the divorce rates had been fairly stable during a 15–20 year period after World War II. Then they started to increase rapidly and demands came for more liberal divorce laws almost everywhere. The governments in many countries started working with changes of the matrimonial laws making them more liberal.

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history continued from page F7 Couples divorcing started to demand that the courts give them joint custody. Previously, such arrangements were unheard of, and intensive debates started. Many claimed that joint custody would be devastating for the children. Some courts followed these demands, and subsequently many laws were changed in that direction. These were some factors of the turmoil during the 1960s and, from my perspective, we can understand what happened with marriages in light of family policy changes during that period. Just a legal change? One could say that what happened was simply that some couples, in many countries many couples, started living together without marrying and that cohabitation was and is just an alternative to marriage or that they are two parallel systems for living together. Everyday life is the same whether they are married or not. When one of them dies or when they separate, there are some legal differences inasmuch as the law favors the married couple by a set of rules.

What happened in Sweden in 1989? As shown in the diagram, there was a peak in the marriage rates in Sweden in 1989. What happened? During the first ten months of 1989, the rates were the approximately the same as in previous years. In November there should have been (had everything been as usual) about 2,000 weddings; but the rate had doubled to about 4,000. In December the rate should again have been about 2,000; but there were about 64,000 weddings. In January 1990 the rate was back again to a normal level. In June 1989, the Swedish Parliament decided that the governmental widow pension should disappear for the sake of gender equity. A provisional regulation gave a pension to those women who were married by January 1, 1990, who had a minor child at home and a husband who was deceased. The amount

Thus, non-marital cohabitation and marriage are not parallel phenomena; neither is cohabitation an alternative to marriage. It was for the few who were fighting for the right to cohabit when the process of change started. Without non-marital cohabitation as a social institution, “living apart together” (LAT) relationships would not have emerged – but that is another issue.

One way of looking at the peak of marriage rates would be to say that the Parliamentary decision caused it. Another way is to consider what happened in the mass media. To start with, mass media did not even mention the decision. But after some months, they started to claim that there were long lines at the registration offices for permissions to marry and for booking an hour in the church or at the mayor’s office. People listened and read. And usually people are somewhat influenced by what they hear or read in mass media. Thus, one could say that the peak was an effect of mass media’s reports. A third way is to be more sociological. We know that many of those cohabiting have the idea that, in the long run, one should marry or be married. To marry means the event of a wedding ceremony with a celebration for friends and relatives; a process. To be married is to be in the state of marriage. When we have an idea that something will happen sometime in the future, we need some kind of a cue for the event to take place. This is exactly what happened. Mass media gave the cue, and lots of cohabiting couple decided not only to marry but also when to marry.

Looking from a different angle we can also see something else. Before all this happened, we had four elements normatively connected. The couple should not have sexual intercourse together before marriage. The couple should eventually marry. After the wedding they should move in together in a common home. About a year after the wedding the wife should give birth to a child. This normative package of elements was fairly efficient in many countries and followed by many couples. But in Scandinavia, for example, the norm against premarital sex was more of an ideal norm and not a real behavioral norm. Some had a child together before they married; about 30 to 40 percent of the brides were pregnant at the wedding – just to mention some indicators of the lack of conformity to the ideal norm against premarital sex.

was to be related to both the wife’s and the husband’s income at the time of his death.

Sweden had a “pool” of relatively marriage prone cohabiting couples, and there are similar pools in other countries where the couples are waiting for a cue to start the process of planning for a wedding.  Literature Bjørnsson, Bjørn, 1971, The Lutheran Doctrine of Marriage in Modern Icelandic Society, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Price, Richard, 1965, Trial Marriage in the Andes, Ethnology, IV, 310–322. Rodman, Hyman, 1966, Illegitimacy in the Caribbean Social Structure: A Reconsideration, American Sociological Review, 31, 673–683 Sundt, Eilert, 1855 (1975), Om giftermål I Norge, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Trost, Jan, 1975, Married and Unmarried Cohabitation: The Case of Sweden – With Some Comparisons, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 33. Trost, Jan, 1980, Unmarried Cohabitation, Västerås: International Library.

NCFR Report’s winter issue will be on Poverty and Families. Submissions are welcome; request the submission guidelines by writing to the Editor, Nancy Gonzalez, at [email protected] . Deadline is September 21, 2009

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Living together or living apart together: new choices for old lovers by Liz Bayler Levaro, MS, Doctoral Candidate, Human Development & Family Sciences, Oregon State University, [email protected] Love in the Time of Old Age They are out there in the millions—widowed, divorced, separated, and ever-single women and men in their 60s, 70s, 80s, even 90s, flirting, dating, courting, marrying—and in increasing numbers, cohabiting. You may call them Mom, Grandpa, Aunt Milly, or even Great-Grammy. I call them the invisible intimates, a hidden population of late-life lovers who are finding each other and creating a life together in nonmarital unions right under our noses yet often under our radar. Stories of newly-found love can be found in the popular press, such as Amanda Smith Barusch’s narrative analysis Love Stories of Later Life or Seasons of the Heart by Zenish Henkin Gross. One is invited to discover whether women are Still Sexy after All These Years? The 9 Unspoken Truths About Women’s Desire Beyond 50 and assured that “nine extraordinary women” between the ages of 67 and 87 are Still Doing It. Academic treatment of late-life love, romance, and intimacy has remained relatively scarce, however. Not all older adults express interest in exploring new relationships after widowhood or divorce. Many say it is too late or they are too old or too set in their ways or that no one could take the place of a sainted departed spouse. Because women live longer than men, and men commonly marry younger women, most older men live with their wives and most widowed persons are women. Desirable single men, therefore, are a hot commodity. By the time they reach their late 70s, there are three times as many women, mostly widowed, as men. The number jumps to four to one by age 85. Although researchers suggest that many older widows have no interest in new intimate relationships, the lack of available men might be why women profess lack of interest in an intimate relationship. Widowed men, however, often report greater loneliness than do women, and those who wish to remarry generally do so fairly quickly.

The Dance of Intimacy in Late Life: It’s Not Only the Waltz I recently posed the following question to students in a class on contemporary families: Your grandfather died last year and now your 70-something grandma is dating a guy in his 80s and is talking about moving in with him. What do you think about that? Some students were supportive and pleased that their grandmother had found someone to love, but others expressed reservations or criticism ranging from the grandmother’s disrespect

that I did something like that. Well, I know she would.” Men sometimes cling to self-imposed gender expectations from midlife about definitions of sexuality that keep them from a love relationship they might Liz Bayler Levaro cherish. Murray (age 93) was pursued by women as old as 104. He told me there was no sense in considering a relationship because “if you can no longer perform as a man, you have nothing to offer.” When I mentioned that women do not necessarily need or seek “performance” and value such intimacies as hugging, stroking, hand-holding, and cuddling, he queried, “Well, why don’t they tell us?”

Unhitching the Horse and Carriage: From Love and Marriage to Cohabitation For many older couples, marriage still represents the preferred and logical next step in a new committed relationship. It is the living arrangement that meets both social and religious norms and expectations. After cohabiting for over a decade, the mother of a friend of mine informed her children that for her deceased husband to disbelief that she and her partner would be getting marsomeone that old would be interested in cohabitation. One student justified the hypo- ried because they didn’t want the grandchildren to think they were “living in sin.” An thetical partnership in strictly platonic terms: increasing number of couples, however, find It would surely be for companionship only. the prospect of marriage—or more likely Like this student, many adults—and particu- remarriage—in late life problematic. Finanlarly adult children—find it no easier to cial considerations are often at the forefront imagine their parents or grandparents being of decisions to forgo marriage. New couples sexually active in new intimate relationships are aware of their children’s fear for their than they did as children. We don’t want to inheritance and for that reason may negotiask, and they don’t want to tell. An 84-year- ate a prenuptial agreement or refrain from old woman I interviewed shared openly with marriage altogether. When it comes to marme her desire for physical intimacy but said riage and money, widows often say straight she would never be able to tell such things out that they are unwilling to risk the finanto her daughter. When asked what her cial security of a departed husband’s pendaughter thought of her placing a personal sion. As a thrice-widowed woman told me, classified ad looking for a man with whom “I cannot afford to remarry again. I have too to share home, hearth, and bed, she replied, many benefits that I would lose.” “I’m sure she would think it was terrible new choices continued on page F10

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new choices continued from page F9 Disincentives to marriage are more numerous and more strongly felt among older women, whether widowed or divorced, than among older men. Widows fear a long period of caregiving for a new husband and possibly another painful loss. Others admit that after a lifetime of taking care of husband and household, in postbereavement widowhood, they want to hang on to their new sense of liberation. Some old women welcome the

An increasing number of couples, however, find the prospect of marriage—or more likely remarriage—in late life problematic. opportunity to discover who they are as individuals and as women. In the British film Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, an old widower impulsively asks Mrs. Palfrey, whom he barely knows, to marry him, reciting all the things they could do together. She gently turns him down, saying, “Most of my life I have been somebody’s daughter, somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother. I would like to spend the rest of my time here being simply myself. I do not intend ever to marry again.” As other contributions to this issue attest, marriage as an institution has declined while cohabitation has become both more prevalent and more socially accepted. Increasing numbers of adults aged 50 and older are choosing cohabitation over (re)marriage. In many retirement communities, unmarried cohabiting elders represent a substantial percentage of couples. For adults in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, cohabitation often represents a vigorous break with their earlier lives. These are, after all, the same folks who raised their daughters to be “nice girls” in the 1950s. Today it is often the kids’ and grandkids’ turn to express distress as their parents and grandparents engage in activities and lifestyles that make their progeny uncomfortable. Unmarried cohabitation is fraught with undeniable uncertainties, especially around issues of caregiving, finance, and inheritance in the case of illness or death. What are children’s obligations to a parent’s new partner with whom they have no legal and perhaps no emotional connection? How can

older couples and their unrelated offspring work together to protect family heirlooms as well as a surviving partner’s well-being? Living apart together (LAT): a growing trend Imagine you are in what you consider a committed intimate relationship but, for a number of reasons, you and your partner maintain separate homes. What do you call this relationship that extends the old “going steady” to something deeper and longer lasting? The French call it “vivre en couple chacun chez soi,” living as a couple each at their own place; clearly too long for casual conversation. The term Living Apart Together, represented by the acronym LAT, was coined in 1978 when a Dutch journalist sought a way to represent just such a relationship phenomenon. Taken from the title of a contemporary Dutch movie, Frank & Eva / Living Apart Together, the term quickly came into everyday use in the Netherlands, aided by the fact that the word lat is also a Dutch work for “stick” as in “sticking together.” A similarly constructed term for the same living arrangement gained rapid acceptance in the early 1990s in Sweden; created from the Swedish word for apart, sär, and the word for live, bo, särbo has entered the mainstream vocabulary and offers a certain legitimacy to the practice. The LAT acronym has yet to become common in either the United States or Canada. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the trend is growing both in numbers and acceptance. Couples of all ages, marital statuses, and sexual orientations engage in LAT relationships. Over the past two decades, northern Europe, where cohabitation is institutionalized, and southern Europe, where cohabitation is relatively rare, have led the way in

frequency of LAT as an alternative to marriage or cohabitation. Although young people are more likely to be in LAT relationships, a number of researchers—Jenny de Jong Gierveld and Nan Stevens in the Netherlands, Sofie Ghazanfareeon Karlsson and Klas Borell in Sweden, and Kate Davidson and Sara Arber in the UK, to name a few—have contributed to the growing understanding of the considerable appeal and advantages of LAT for older widowed or divorced women, who are often the driving force behind the LAT choice. Living apart together dissolves many of the concerns associated with marriage and cohabitation. Indeed, as Canadian scholar Ingrid Connides points out, many of the reasons old women give as arguments against remarriage, cohabitation, and romantic relationships in general lose their bite in a LAT relationship. LAT allows for unencumbered contact with adult children from previous relationships while protecting their inheritance and offering freedom from caregiving as a prescribed duty. Women in a LAT relationship find the ideal mixture of intimacy with a partner they love and the freedom to also lead their own lives. Retaining the privacy of their own home, where they can “be by themselves” and “live their own lives,” as researchers Sofie Ghazanfareeon Karlsson and Klas Borell discovered, is a key ingredient to achieving the balance between autonomy and intimacy, companionship and independence that represents one of the most valued advantages to LAT relationships. Separate homes also allow a tangible line of demarcation in terms of gender equity and the distribution of household labor. Having often spent a lifetime in household servitude, older women revel in the freedom to live as they wish. While acknowledging a certain sense of “selfishness,” they enjoy their new status and do not relish reinstatement of a marital or even cohabiting relationship that might diminish their sense of newfound independence and self. Perhaps if the old Army officer in the movie Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont had suggested a LAT relationship rather than marriage, he might have been granted the opportunity he wished to have her make him the “luckiest  man in the world.”

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Cohabitation and the rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing A recently-released report by the National Center for Health Statistics indicated that 39.7 % of all U.S. births in 2007 were to unmarried women. The number of out-ofwedlock births – 1.7 million – hit an all-time high. Perhaps even more disquieting was that the teen birth rate increased for the second year in a row after declining every year since 1991. Most big-city newspapers picked up the story – often with blaring or alarmist headlines. No doubt this reflects the continuing stigma associated with childbearing among adolescents and single women in American society.

conventional interpretations of out-of-wedlock fertility. A growing share – perhaps even a majority share – of children born outside of marriage live with both biological parents.

What is the Link between Cohabitation and Nonmarital Fertility? Not surprisingly, the recent uptick in nonmarital fertility has caused considerable speculation about its causes. Some scholars have suggested that recent increases in outof-wedlock childbearing represent a clear failure of abstinence-only education in our secondary schools. But out-of-wedlock childbearing also increased among older teens no longer in school and among young A growing share – perhaps adults. Others point instead to growing racial and ethnic diversity in American society, even a majority share – of children especially to increases in poor ethnic immiborn outside of marriage live with grant populations from Mexico and other both biological parents. parts of Latin America. But Hispanic-origin immigrants have lower nonmarital fertility The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and rates than their native-born counterparts. Still others point to new reproductive techUnintended Pregnancy estimates that the economic costs of out-of-wedlock children, nologies, which have opened up unprecedented opportunities for older unmarried especially among teenagers, are enormous. women, including lesbians, to have children Families headed by a single parent, usually the mother, are five times more likely than families headed by both parents to be poor. Single mothers are often dependent on welfare or other in-kind public assistance, such as food stamps. And out-of-wedlock childbearing seemingly perpetuates intergenerational poverty. Patterns of single parenthood and family instability are reproduced from generation to generation. Should we therefore be concerned about the accelerated uncoupling of marriage and childbearing? The statistical correlations seem clear. But, of course, policy debates often pivot on the question of whether family instability – including out-of-wedlock childbearing – is a cause or consequence of economic deprivation and poverty. As we argue here, interpretations also have been made ambiguous by the rise in cohabitation. Nonmarital cohabitation has become an important, but sometimes unrecognized, context for childbearing which can distort

on their own. But in 2005 the number of births that resulted from assisted reproductive technologies accounted for only 1 % of all births, and the largest share of these births were to heterosexual married couples rather than to single women. From a strictly demographic perspective, the growing percentage of out-of-wedlock births not only reflects changes in nonmarital

photo courtesy cornell university

by Daniel T. Lichter [email protected], and Julie H. Carmalt, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University fertility rates, but also potentially results from declines in marital fertility rates, declines in “shotgun marriage,” and the changing shares of unmarried women (i.e., the growing population Daniel Lichter “at risk” of an out-ofwedlock birth). Perhaps paradoxically, most studies show that the retreat from marriage – which has been fueled by rising cohabitation – has been largely responsible for recent increases in the nonmarital fertility ratio. Our work with Felicia Yang DeLeone and Robert Strawderman showed that the share of nonmarital births among Latinas, for example, increased from about 44 % to 49 % over the past decade or so. Virtually all of this increase was due to the rising share of unmarried Latinas rather than to increases in nonmarital fertility or declines in marital fertility rates.

The putative causes and interpretations of increasing nonmarital fertility are hotly contested. Most policy discussions fail to acknowledge that births to cohabiting couples are counted in government statistics as outof-wedlock births. Nonmarital fertility has a different meaning today than a generation ago, but this is rarely acknowledged in newspaper accounts or public policy discussions. A recent study by Sheela Kennedy and Larry Bumpass, in fact, reported that about one-half of all nonmarital births in the late 1990s occurred to cohabiting mothers. Almost 20 % of all births were to cohabiting couples. These estimates are undoubtedly higher today. Whether we should be sanguine or not about nonmarital fertility rates ultimately depends on the changing share of nonmarital births to cohabiting couples and on the changing meaning of cohabitation as a context for

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childbearing and childrearing. In particular, it depends on the stability of cohabiting relationships – whether they are healthy and proceed (or not) to marriage. It seems clear that it is impossible to fully understand the social and economic implications of rising nonmarital fertility without first addressing questions of childbearing and childrearing among cohabiting couples. Cohabitation and government statistics For social scientists, the challenge begins with obvious inadequacies in our statistical system. The National Center for Health Statistics, which annually reports statistics on out-of-wedlock childbearing based on birth certificate data, does not provide information on fertility to cohabiting couples. Although cohabitation status is not included on birth certificates, useful information on cohabitation and fertility is provided by periodic national fertility surveys, such as the National Survey of Family Growth. However, these data do not provide annual fertility estimates for cohabitors – which is necessary for monitoring and evaluating trends – and the number of observations is often insufficient for reporting estimates for “at risk” groups, which are important for policymaking. The new American Community Survey provides annual fertility estimates for women 15-50, including cohabiting women who head households or who are the unmarried partners of household heads. These estimates, while useful, are complicated by the fact that cohabitation status is not established at the time of the child’s birth but at the time of the survey. Other large scale data, such as the decennial Census or the March Current Population Survey, make it possible to identify the number and percentage of children born into cohabiting couple families. Census-based estimates, in fact, indicate that 43% of households headed by a cohabiting couple in 2000 included coresidential children. Because of divorce, however, a large share of these children lived with only one biological parent, along with a cohabiting stepparent. The circumstances of children of divorce are surely different from those of children living with both biological parents in cohabiting unions. Obvious data limitations in our statistical system pose large challenges to our understanding of the family formation behaviors

of cohabitating couples. But the conceptual challenges may be even larger, especially if we are interested – as we should be – in mapping the economic and social costs of outof-wedlock childbearing for American society, single parents and children. The implications of the recent rise in out-of-wedlock births rest, at least in part, on the share of out-ofwedlock births to cohabiting couples. More importantly, they depend on whether children born to cohabiting couples will, on average, share the same life course experiences of children born to married couples.

into cohabiting unions – so-called “shotgun” cohabitations. A recent U.S. Census report by Jane Lawyer Dye showed that first birth rates were unexpectedly higher among cohabiting couples than married couples. But higher fertility here may simply reflect the hasty entry of pregnant single women into cohabiting unions; cohabitation status at the time of conception was not measured. Moreover, whether these cohabiting relationships last or culminate in marriage – a stable marriage for children – is unclear, especially if hastily-made cohabitations are over-representative of “mismatched” or incompatible partners. Previous research shows that shotgun marriages have very high rates of dissolution. The same is probably true of shotgun cohabitations.

Of course, cohabiting women may become pregnant – intentionally or not – after rather before they begin living together. This raises additional questions about adequately measuring nonmarital fertility and evaluating its consequences. If childbearing is planned, then the economic and developmental impliWe know from recent studies that pregnancy cations for children may be modest, especially if these couples are in committed rates are far higher among cohabiting than single women, and nearly as high as among relationships (whether it turns into a marriage young married women. This is an important or not). But, Kelly Musick recently reported demographic fact, especially as cohabitation that only about one-half of all births to cohabiting couples are planned, compared has replaced marriage as the first union experience for a growing majority of young with about 80% among married couples. adults. Fertility among cohabiting couples is Unintended pregnancy status is associated with deleterious developmental trajectories undoubtedly responsible for some – maybe among children. The children of cohabiting most – of the recent growth in nonmarital couples, on average, start from a different fertility. We just do not know how much, at place than the children of married couples. least not from government statistics or national surveys currently available to us. Even with this simple example, facile interAs researchers, we also need to think hard about how pregnancy and childbearing among cohabiting couples are linked to subsequent marriage and divorce. To date, there is little empirical evidence showing that fertility rates among cohabiting couples are increasing. But numerical increases in cohabiting couples will, by definition, lead to more births to cohabiting couples and higher nonmarital birth rates. Recent studies by Wendy Manning and Kelly Raley, among others, have outlined many different scenarios that imply different short- and long-term consequences for couples and their children. For example, pregnancy may spur some single non-coresidential couples to enter

pretations of the data should be avoided. Many cohabiting couples may choose to get married at the same time they decide to begin a family. The decisions to get married and have a child are made jointly. Pregnancy may occur before marriage, but any births after marriage would obviously be reported as marital births (as a result of the shotgun marriage). It also may be the case that cohabiting couples with planned pregnancies are more likely to marry, leaving behind a disproportionate share of unplanned births among cohabiting couples who did not marry. The unintended share of cohabiting

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Divorce-proofing marriage: young adults’ views on the connection between cohabitation and marital longevity by Wendy D. Manning, Ph.D., [email protected], Bowling Green State University, and Pamela J. Smock, Ph.D., [email protected], University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Many scientific studies have shown that couples who live together first are at higher risk of marital disruption; this finding has become the “conventional wisdom.” The popular press, articles in scholarly journals, and textbooks often discuss the correlation between living together before marriage and divorce, and why this association seems to exist. Indeed, perhaps the most common question about cohabitation we receive from reporters, academics who do not study cohabitation, and members of the public, is whether cohabitation really increases the risk of divorce. Teach a family class and one of the liveliest discussions you will experience centers on this issue. Students voice their

out-of-wedlock childbearing

skepticism about this finding, not so much because they are budding researchers, but because they are concerned about the future of their own relationships. At the same time, a careful assessment of studies on this topic reveals that researchers have, for some time, observed complexities behind this linkage, and thus exceptions to the rule. The relationship between cohabitation and marital instability is complicated and depends on factors such as sexual history, cohabitation history, intentions to marry, birth cohort, and race/ethnicity. Some studies, particularly recent ones, find that the relationship does not exist, or at least not for all groups. What does seem true is that cohabi-

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births – roughly 50% – may therefore simply reflect the high percentage of cohabiting couples with planned conceptions who also planned to marry soon. Not surprisingly, the cohabiting relationships “left behind” may be highly unstable, as we have learned from several studies based on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and Sara McLanahan’s research team. Dissolution rates are very high.

Wendy Manning

Pamela Smock

tation does not deter marital breakup, but this is not the same as the idea that cohabitation is strongly linked to divorce. To buttress knowledge, we turn to the voices of young adults themselves who are in the midst of making decisions about and experiencing living together. What do they, the objects of scientific inquiry, have to say about the link between cohabitation and divorce? To anticipate, they believe cohabitation is a means to “divorce-proof” one’s marriage. Rather than seeing cohabitation as a trigger for divorce, they perceive it as a shield against it.

One fact is clear: A much higher percentage of cohabiting than single couples get married in the event of pregnancy. Yet, cohabiting couples are less likely than in the past to “legitimize” a birth by marrying. Shotgun marriages among cohabitors have declined at the same time shotgun cohabitations have increased. Unfortunately, we know very little about how the planned and unplanned pregnancies of cohabiting couples are linked to marriage and, by extension, to children’s positive developmental trajectories.

Our Study We interviewed over 350 young adults living in and around one large and one medium-sized city in the Midwest to learn about how people today are thinking about, and experiencing, cohabiting relationships. Representing a range of social classes, from Implications Our basic message is a simple one: Any interpretation of the recent rise in nonmarital fertility the near-poor to the middle-class, these men must acknowledge the changing role of cohabitation in American society. Government statistics and women are from diverse racial and have not kept pace with changing family reality. Birth certificates should include information ethnic backgrounds: Latinos, Whites, and on the residence status of both parents – whether unmarried parents live together or not. We African Americans. They are social workers, know that cohabitation has become an important and, in some cases, even a normal context waiters, truck drivers, electricians, teachers, for childbearing and childrearing. Fertility among cohabiting couples accounts for a growing home health care aides, prison guards, parttime students, the recently unemployed, share – perhaps a majority share – of all nonmarital births. Any thoughtful discussion of sales clerks, and paralegals. We interviewed out-of-wedlock childbearing today must, at a minimum, recognize the difficult technical some in focus groups and most individually. and conceptual challenges associated with unprecedented childbearing among cohabiting The majority had cohabited, with many in couples. Cohabitation and nonmarital fertility are here to stay. Indeed, cohabitation is a cohabiting relationships at the time we major driver of contemporary American fertility and family-building behavior today.  The authors thank Kelly Musick, Jane Powers, and Sharon Sassler for their helpful comments. family focus// summer 2009

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divorce-proofing continued from page F13 interviewed them. But we also spoke with men and women who had not (yet) cohabited to ensure we learned about a range of views and experiences. While not a nationally representative sample, our aim was to delve deeper into the meanings of cohabitation than we have been able to do via quantitative analysis of large-scale survey data.

…they believe cohabitation is a means to “divorce-proof” one’s marriage. The Backdrop: The Specter of Divorce Many of our interviewees mentioned divorce: That of their parents, their relatives, or their friends, or all of these. Indeed, these young adults were born and spent their childhoods during a period in U.S. history with some of the highest divorce rates on record. Understandably, most everyone had a divorce story; they could also easily recite the phrase “one out of two marriages end in divorce.” A cohabiting young woman says she “knows more divorced people than married people.” Given that a significant proportion of our sample (roughly 50%), did not grow up with both biological parents, it is not surprising that the divorce scare loomed large in our interviews. A young man from one of our focus groups had this to say: Well you know my parents are divorced and my uncle is divorced and my grandparents are too. So, why do we have to get married? You know - why don’t we just try it on first and see if we are meant to be with each other for the long run?… Nowadays young people are making that… choice. Based on experience, then, young adults are well aware that marriages can be fragile and want to do what they can “cohabit” to avoid a failed marriage. Below we touch on three themes that emerged as young adults explained why they believe cohabitation can “divorce-proof” a marriage. Of socks and toothpaste Consider the premise of the MTV reality television show The Real World, which opens with the line: “this is what happens when people stop being polite... and start getting real.” Similarly, our respondents regard cohabitation as a way to discover the

“real” person in their partner, which is thought to be most effectively revealed in a living-together situation. As many explained to us, an important reason for living together is getting to know the partner’s habits and lifestyle, and deciding whether they are tolerable, to determine whether there is long-term compatibility. Cohabitation is “where you get the nitty gritty. That’s where you find out if they really do brush their teeth before going to bed.” One young man said: “You may be great dating together but after a week of actually sharing the same space 24 hours a day, seven days a week… That’s a definite good reason to try it out first.” Similarly, one woman stated that cohabitation allows “partners to work through issues or habits before marriage.” Another told us, “[Y]ou could love one another but not be able to live with each other. Like if he is a slob and I’m very clean, I would have a big problem with that.” While issues related to picking up socks may seem trivial, they nonetheless appear to signal how well a couple can share the same living space. The test drive Young adults also want to figure out what their relationship will be like in the future, when they get married. A cohabiting woman explains her relationship as a test drive: “Test drive the car before you buy it.” Another metaphor was used by a young man who was dating, but not (yet) cohabiting. If you don’t cohabit, it is like “signing a lifelong lease before ever having checked out the place.” Cohabitation is thus seen by some of our respondents as a way to gain information to prepare for, or decide about, marriage. A cohabiting woman asserts, “I think you should live with him before you get married and know everything before you make the final decision.” All in all, our interviews indicate that young adults view cohabitation as a savvy way to get to know your partner and to reduce the uncertainty that goes along with getting married. A young man who has been cohabiting for about a year thinks cohabitation allows you to “get to know the person and their habits before you get married. So that way, you won’t have to get divorced.” A woman cohabiting for about eight months wants to

ensure “we’re not gonna head towards a divorce … we’ve learned a lot about each other in the past year … we’re still finding out things about each other.” A cohabiting man puts it this way: “I think living together gives you that edge on people who don’t live together before marriage, because you know what they’re gonna be like.” Young adults, then, find cohabitation an important venue for working out issues so they have an easier time in marriage. As we underscored above, their experiences with divorce make them sensitive to potential obstacles to lifelong marriage: “A lot of people I know are divorced, I just don’t want that to happen to me.” Cohabitation as an alternative to divorce A surefire way to avoid getting divorced is to not get married in the first place. If young adults view marriage and cohabitation as being quite similar, with few additional benefits to marriage, then cohabitation represents a clear way to prevent divorce. This is a much more extreme version of the test drive, as it entails avoiding marriage altogether. While not characterizing the majority view, with most of our respondents planning to marry at some point, it does reflect the perspectives of some. These men and women have typically experienced their parents’ divorce or have divorced themselves. As one respondent declares, “Everyone in my family has gotten a divorce. Everyone gets divorces. So I’m like, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna. I’m not gonna go through that. I’m not gonna take the gamble.” That is, I’ll cohabit and not get married. Echoing the same idea, one mans states: “… I think [cohabitation is] a good thing. I really do…. the divorce rate’s really high, you feel like you’re married, there’s no reason to go downtown and sign a piece of paper….” A related belief is that ending a marriage involves more “hassle” than breaking up with a cohabiting partner. As a man in one of our focus groups put it, cohabitation has

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Nohabitation: a Less than Ideal Situation by Kristy Smith, MA, MA, LBSW, CFLE, [email protected] “My husband is coming over to visit tonight,” I announce at lunch. My coworkers snicker because it’s as true as it sounds ridiculous. Following a two-year courtship, Kerry and I married almost a year ago and are still miles

Pressed to define our living situation, we came up with the term “Nohabitation.” apart; 42 to be exact. Not philosophically, but logistically. We still have separate households, something that is not likely to change anytime soon. His youngest son has another year until high school graduation, and we don’t want to relocate him so close to the end of his school career. We have two ex-spouses to consider in the immediate vicinity and visitation agreements to honor.

Plus, it’s not as if Kerry could sell his house right now. He’s had it on the market, but didn’t get any takers. We’ve come to regard our apartness as economic collateral damage. It’s added a layer of logistical complication to our already busy lives, but economic and custody realities cannot be ignored. Pressed to define our living situation, we came up with the term “Nohabitation.” We figured that if living together unmarried is “cohabitation,” then NOT living together once married is “Nohabitation.” Label it whatever you like, as long as you don’t call it “easy.” Our only married benefits so far are shared library, YMCA, and Sam’s Club membership cards. Nohabitation is twice as expensive as cohabitation. Two mortgages, property tax bills, electric bills, heating fuel bills, phone bills, garbage bills, grocery lists, driveways to plow, yards to maintain, and two houses to clean.

Two separate sets of potential (make that actual!) mechanical problems. Too much. To spend time together, we must neglect things at our respective homes. It’s tough to be mentally present when you are Kristy Smith a “guest” at your spouse’s home and have projects that are going undone back at the ranch. We’re both homebodies, too. In order to preserve our together time, I’ve resorted to dragging supplies to his place to bake my kids’ school holiday party treats there. He’s got a workbench in my basement. I transport a dog and two kids with me when I go to visit. That’s a lot of packing and a nohabitation continued on page F16

divorce-proofing continued from page F14 an advantage over marriage because “you don’t have to go through the divorce process if you do want to break up, you don’t have to pay lawyers and have to deal with splitting everything and all that jazz.” (We would add that this view is not necessarily consistent with reality. We find that the dissolution of cohabiting relationships is not easy, often involving stressful divisions of property, emotional heartbreak, and economic loss.)

three years, asserts: “[Y]ou’ll have more chance of getting divorced if you don’t live with somebody first, just because you don’t know what to expect.”

National data indicate that roughly two-thirds of recently-married couples lived together first. This percentage is likely to continue to climb, making it increasingly rare to not live together. As cohabitation becomes more commonplace, those choosing not to live Reflections together before marriage are becoming a We also interviewed married respondents, more select group possessing the most the majority of whom cohabited prior to traditional values. The flip side of the coin is marriage, to provide further insight into the that individuals who cohabit are becoming meaning of cohabitation for young adults. more diverse. While the consensus among The extent to which their views are consisresearchers is that cohabitation does not tent with the above themes is striking; they enhance marital stability, increasingly, studies spoke to us about the value of cohabitation are suggesting that cohabitation may not in terms of providing insight into “socks and necessarily be hurting marriage. toothpaste” issues, who the “real” person is, What can we make of all of this? and how these discovery processes and We believe a more complicated storyline practices make divorce less likely. One about how and why cohabitation influences married woman advises, “Like just get to marital longevity, and how this may be changknow this person the best you possibly can ing over the course of recent history, needs to before like getting married, ‘cause nobody be developed. A “one size fits all” argument wants to get divorced.’” Another, married

just doesn’t work anymore. We would also argue that a fuller understanding of how cohabitations helps or hurts marriage must take account of marriages that were delayed due to cohabitation, or avoided altogether. In the end, given the leveling of divorce over the past few decades and the continuing rise in cohabitation, it seems to us that an idea put forth by our former professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Larry Bumpass and Jim Sweet, is relevant. Cohabitation may be a critical context in which marriages least likely to succeed are weeded out: they are called “premarital divorces.” This idea resonates with the clear lesson we draw from the voices of young adults about cohabitation “ that living together is perceived as the smart  way to keep divorce at bay. Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful for the support of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (R03 HD039835 and R01 HD040910). We also acknowledge the work of co-authors on our project, especially Jessica Cohen and Penelope Huang.

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nohabitation continued from page F15 We’ve created a layer of craziness in our lives. Nohabitation logistics tie our stomachs and schedules in knots. We meet for dinner, movies, family gatherings and community events, then get into separate vehicles and go our separate ways. Saying goodnight by phone is standard. Kerry and I entered into this marriage with Commuting expenses are horrendous. How invasive it must feel to Kerry’s son and the mission to establish a solid, satisfying Sometimes we can’t resist insane speculation. and supportive partnership that makes all two college-age daughters to have Dad’s new wife and stepkids drop in for an overnighter. What if he just walked away from his house endeavors possible. And that’s how it’s workand mortgage? Yanked his son out of his ing. It’s not just our endeavors our marriage Some people are baffled by our Nohabitation. school at the start of his senior year? Quit supports, but those of our children, extended “If you aren’t going to take his last name, paying all bills at both our places and moved families, the other people who populate our and you aren’t going to live together, then to a rental? We can see how easy it would be lives and the communities in which we live. what’s the point of being married?,” one to just quit trying to do the right thing. It’s long-married couple asked me. “You should We’re in it for the long haul; although we tough to be rational in an irrational situation. have waited until after he sold his house to recognize our haul will not be as long as that Maybe it would be easier if a definite end were of many couples. The late start and logistics get married.” in sight. Granted, my stepson may graduate a guarantee it. We’ve invested in this longThat might have been the 12th of Never, year from now, but it’s not like that will term partnership that regularly requires our given the state of the housing market. I suddenly make Kerry’s house sell. We try not higher selves. believe there’s more to marriage than simply to talk/obsess about it because rumination is sharing a last name, a mailbox, and a bed. Living separately has sparked a somewhat even less helpful than speculation. We don’t At least I used to. Other people eagerly protectionist view of intimacy. We value our want to contaminate what quality time we do embrace the separate household arrangement, time together in a way couples with immedihave together with extra negativity. seeing it as more of a solution than a probate, unfettered access to one another cannot. Separation is typically an exit route from a lem. “I sure wish my spouse had a separate We’ve quit giving so much of ourselves away house,” they say. “That would suit me fine.” marriage, not the entrance ramp. It feels to unfulfilling activities and unnecessary wrong to have to yearn to spend time with busyness and have become remarkable stewOne of the most frustrating aspects of travone’s spouse. Cynics attribute it to our new- ards of relationship. Although we’re regueling back and forth is forgetting to pack lywed status. I attribute it to Kerry’s attributes. larly apart, we’ve never felt more connected. something for the next day. It’s most probHe’s a great guy; the kind you truly enjoy lematic on weekdays. One morning Kerry This brings me to the obvious question: spending time with. I’ve known him 17 awakened at my house to the realization Would any of this be possible without maryears and haven’t grown tired of him yet. he’d forgotten dress clothes for work. The riage? Maybe, but I don’t really think so. I think back to my years of cohabitation, Hawaiian shirt and shorts he’d worn to my Without the bonds of marriage tethering our which I pretended at the time were a stepping- sanity, there are times we might be tempted place the night before simply wouldn’t do. stone to marriage. Are we now playing nonWhile I’ve worn his underwear in a pinch, to leave the relationship, truthfully citing, house, pretending we’ll someday be together he ignored my offer of a skirt and blouse. “It’s just too hard.” under the same roof with one set of family Multiple houses are not as glamorous or Fortunately, our official covenant, witnessed bills? Did my past-life cohabitation invite “Hollywood” as you might think. Kerry now at our wedding by mutual supporters, is a this ironically bad Karma? While there’s no keeps backup clothing here as I used to for relational insurance policy during frustration way to measure the physical, mental, and the kids at daycare, in case of an “accident.” flare-ups and ongoing apartness. It gently emotional toll this ongoing separation with But that has him searching his house for pants reins us in and keeps trespassing issues out, periodic bursts of unity has taken on us, it’s that he forgot are hanging in my closet. The functioning as an invisible length of crime got to be significant. same happens to me with migratory pans, scene tape. Lately, I’ve been able to achieve a degree of travel mugs, Rubbermaid® containers, and Our crime? Nohabitation. We’re daring to acceptance regarding our current state of checkbooks that end up at Kerry’s place. court commuter commitment during an The tearful issue of left behind kids’ stuff is non-state. Our decision to marry at the ages economic downturn and in a way that honors of 44 and 48 was not entered into lightly. It even worse. the others in our lives. Surprisingly, if we was a (mostly) conscious decision. We knew It feels like I’m still dating my husband. Had had to do it over, we would make the same tying the knot would not loosen the shackles we wanted to just date, we wouldn’t have tied difficult decision again. We’re better people of the separate household and commuter the knot. We felt strongly about making this building a stronger marriage because of this Hell that serves as the container for our  relationship “legal.” We’re committed to one life we have chosen for ourselves. relationship. We felt strongly moved to another. We’re committed to the commitment. promise ourselves to one another despite the Kristy Smith is a humorist and freelance writer Perhaps we should be committed . . . . prolonged promise of sleeping single in our and also the Director of the Jackson County Department on Aging in Jackson, Michigan. respective double beds. ton of remembering. Parenting responsibilities, work commitments, and weather conditions (we live in extreme season-changing Michigan) are the main determinants of our time together, which averages three evenings per week.

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