Free Republic

<p>Everyone knows that American family structure is changing. In recent decades, large increases in divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing have dramatically altered the social landscape. But a related social change has received little attention. That's the extraordinary rise in cohabitation, in which an unmarried man and woman share a household as sexual partners.</p>

<p>A mother's daughter, a mother's son, murdered or abused by the mother's live-in boyfriend -- how often do we read the story these days? It's become a cultural commonplace, though one we're often reluctant to discuss in public for some good and not-so-good reasons. It feels too much like blaming the victim -- the mother's lost her child and a woman's entitled to a love life. Raising an eyebrow about these shack-job arrangements also seems so, how shall we say, judgmental, and who wants to be judgmental these days?</p>