Posted on 04/14/2012 5:44:08 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Project, then at Rutgers and now at the University of Virginia, nearly half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, “You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really get along.” About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.
But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.
Researchers originally attributed the cohabitation effect to selection, or the idea that cohabitors were less conventional about marriage and thus more open to divorce. As cohabitation has become a norm, however, studies have shown that the effect is not entirely explained by individual characteristics like religion, education or politics. Research suggests that at least some of the risks may lie in cohabitation itself.
As Jennifer and I worked to answer her question, “How did this happen?” we talked about how she and her boyfriend went from dating to cohabiting. Her response was consistent with studies reporting that most couples say it “just happened.”
“We were sleeping over at each other’s places all the time,” she said. “We liked to be together, so it was cheaper and more convenient. It was a quick decision but if it didn’t work out there was a quick exit.”
She was talking about what researchers call “sliding, not deciding.” Moving from dating to sleeping over to sleeping over a lot to cohabitation can be a gradual slope
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Incurring G-d’s wrath might be a strong downside.
Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to
be immoral people, which causes problems.
Simply marrying somebody who was already halfway out the door creates a situation where they will always be halfway our the door.
Simply marrying somebody who was already halfway out the door creates a situation where they will always be halfway our the door.
Crude but effective.
fascinating, i guess the more we learn the more we realize that many “traditional” things had a really good reason
whatever. they wanted it until they were sick of it. their goodies turned to gravel in their insatiable stomachs. cry me a river.
We always called it Shacking up
Then there’s the thrill of going against their parents wishes.
-—fascinating, i guess the more we learn the more we realize that many “traditional” things had a really good reason-—
Yup.
yes indeed!
Rudyard Kipling called them The Gods of the Copybook Headings.
Translation:
"I thought he was cute so I spread my legs for him. He liked getting laid so I started spreading my legs for him every night. But the cost of maintaining two apartments and buying gasoline to travel back and forth made it too expensive for me to keep putting out. So we moved in together. That way I can satisfy him sexually all the time and he can try me out, you know, like a test drive, to see if I'm worth marrying."
"I am woman. Hear me roar."
Or conversely, surprisingly it can often be the male who wants to marry, but the female is the one who wants to remain foot loose and fancy free.
That’s what dating is all about. You learn about someone over time. You get to see what the other person is like just by what they do and how they act. Then too, a credit report is a must. I mean, you know ...
The strain it puts on the relationship is not healthy and the expectations are unrealistic.
You are a person. You are going to get sick, sweat, get grumpy, leave your socks on the floor and so on and so forth. A spouse understands this and will forgive you your trespasses because they know that they will need forgiving too. A Shack-up Honey usually won't.
In most parts of the world, and in Biblical times, you ended up having your head lopped off or smashed with stones. Fun times.
In the 60’s, before hippies, no one lived in sin. Sometimes, there were whispers about “common law marriages”, but it wasn’t good.
When someone has shacked up with a half-dozen other partners, it’s a myth to pretend “they didn’t really count” like a marriage. No alimony or lawyers but everything else is the same except the ceremony.
Just as women who’ve had abortions pretend they never really got pregnant.
The sexual revolution was designed to smash monogamy (their phrase, not mine).
If I were a young man, ideally I’d never marry a girl who would have sex out of wedlock.
Can’t trust such a girl that much—if she found a way to rationalize having illicit sex when it suits her, she’ll more easily find a way to rationalize cheating on her husband when it suits her, too.
And a girl who’ll live with a guy outside of marriage, is just plain weak-minded with little self-respect or just strange.
Don’t think too highly of women, do ya?
Don’t think too highly of women, do ya?
Not stupid women. I pity them.
If you call it Sin now, even some Church people get mad. My how we have grown.
>>”I am woman. Hear me roar.” <<
That’s what I tell my girls all the time.
YOU control the situation, YOU can save yourself for your husband, YOU need not ‘put out’ because that takes the control of your own body away.
Women lost so much.
OTOH, eventually that "cow" may give you a calf. That's where character fails for many.
female promiscuity is market driven.
Think of two high school dances,
1 with 100 females and 200 males
2-200 females and 100 males.
the female behavior at the dances will be radically different.
With so many college educated females and so few college educated males this promiscuity rears his ugly head and we have problems similar to what the african-american community faces today.
Even cruder, and perhaps even more effective, would be:
Ha! I guess they don’t realize that living together is the worst part of being married. ;-)
Many living-together couples, if asked why they do not marry, respond that marriage (license) is just a piece of paper. That begs the question: If it’s just a piece of paper, why the aversion to getting it?
They've given away their power.
Exactly what the article said, people move in together to split the bills and make sex easy. People get married because they want to spend the rest of their lives with one person.
As one of those college educated, unmarried men I’d prefer anything other than the women I went to school with.
I tried that dating market, what’s the point? I was always the guy who got called when nobody else was available and you didn’t want to be seen in public.
I’ve had far more luck with women who actually appreciate kindness even if they were somewhat older. Far more luck.
So chalk me up to the statistics of yet another man checking out from the ‘college educated young woman’ market.
My husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this past February. We will be together 25 years next June.....
The same can be said of men..............and more so.
My husband put of the piece of paper because he didn't want me to get hit with his problems with the IRS. We married within 6 months after that problem was solve.
You speak for so many of the younger men I know. They don’t want any part of most of their female ‘peers’ who would (on paper) be their logical dating market. These men are going either for older women or for women from other countries who aren’t “liberated” in the American way.
Its all chemistry, the right mix will last forever. Too many of us marry strangers, even after long courtships, and find out later, it was a terrible mistake. Living with someone before marrying them doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t last. LOVE is the key, but are we still capable of it? Growing up in the late 60’s it was called free love, but it wasn’t love, it was just free sex. After a while, the great sex wears off, and if you thought it was love, it wasn’t. I’m sure any couple who is living together for 50+ years whether married or not, is an indication that there was chemistry and love.
We lived together before we got married. That was over 31 years ago. When our daughter got married the first time, we talked her out of living with the guy. Turns out he was the devil’s spawn and did horrible things, like try to kill her.
When she met her current husband, we attempted to talk them out of living together, but after her very bad experience, and the fact that it didn’t hurt us any we lost the argument. They lived together for 6 months before they were married. They are doing GREAT and so are we.
Correlation != causation. People who move in together for the wrong reasons marry for the wrong reasons. The wife and I lived together first, 20th wedding anniversary was last month and the relationship gets better every day.
That old saying doesn’t work anymore and kids know it. A small amount of common sense should tell you that refusing to give milk for free doesn’t accomplish a damn thing when 80% of all cows on the planet ARE giving the milk for free. You need to retire that saying and come up with a new one.
Being middle aged and never married, I can tell you from personal experience that refusing to shack up seems to make you single for life in this day and age.
The problem with that old saying is that it comes from the mistaken view that sex is the only thing in a relationship. Real lifetime relationships are about sharing, teamwork and companionship, which you’re probably giving from day one, probably even with people you’re not having sex with.
Because it is a life long free pass to a man’s wallet. Men know this and they do not want to hand out that pass for free to just anyone.
Divorce.
..................that refusing to shack up seems to make you single for life in this day and age..................
Well good on you!
My daughter, age 44 in NYC, professional and beautiful, has dated so many men, yet remains single. To my joy!
As an artist, she has dated so many artistic losers, has bedded many of them, yet has been descernable enough not to follow her father’s legacy of falling in love with sex, not the person.
Good on her!
So the point seems to be that they should sell their sexual favors-- the guy should whip out his wallet and plunk down the going market rate for the sexual favor he wants. This puts a market value on sex which is wrong in the first place. Why stop at sexual favors and put a market value on everything. That we we have nothing to do with each other unless it is for pay. Gee, sounds like a fun world. Religion, and Puritanism in particular, has so screwed up women and humanity in general. Maybe -- just maybe -- Dad's generation was full-on wrong.
And the women should also be required to open their purses and plunk down money for the sexual favors they want from men by exactly the same reasoning. And marriage is reduced to some kind of exclusive monetary-based two-way monopoly. Yuck.
There’s nothing good about it. I consider never-before-married people like myself as useless losers. For women its even worse since their “expiration date” happens at a younger age. Your daughter’s life is an utter waste. I see nothing for you to brag about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.