Free Republic

Two of the world’s leading scholars on the harmful impact of cohabitation on relational health and marital success – Scott Stanley and Galena Rhoades, both of the University of Denver – have published an important new report expanding upon previous research. Scholars have long known, and there is surprisingly very little disagreement among them, that cohabiting relationships are associated with markedly higher rates of marital divorce. Something about the cohabiting experience tends to chip away at the likelihood of success in marriage. These scholars explain in this new report that “for decades in the U.S., living together before marriage has...

First comes love, then comes an indeterminate period of conveniently living together to decide whether your partner’s dishwasher-loading habits are a dealbreaker, then comes marriage.Today a lot of young daters assume moving in together is a prerequisite for matrimonial success. But it actually hikes up a couple’s proclivity toward divorce compared to spouses who wed without first cohabitating — a statistic that shocked hosts Jordyn Woodruff and Alex Bennett of Barstool Sports’ “Mean Girl” podcast in Wednesday’s episode.“Couples who live together before marrying have nearly an 80 percent higher divorce rate than those who do not,” Bennett noted incredulously. View...

The Marriage Strengthening Research & Dissemination Center (or MAST Center) recently released a new report illustrating the vast scale of disillusionment regarding the institution of marriage in the eyes of America’s young people.Among other findings, the study found that almost 80% of teenagers (categorized as 15- to 19-year-olds) expect to cohabit before marriage, with 95% saying that they expect to marry someday.In an article analyzing the report, Alysse ElHage of the Institute for Family Studies highlighted some particularly revealing comments from teenagers about their thoughts on marriage from a New York Times story from 2019.A teen from Texas reflected:I feel...

While many Christians are taught that premarital sex and cohabitation aren't advisable for many reasons, a growing number of single believers are following secular society's model instead of the biblical model. In the most recent episode of "Challenging Conversations" on the edifi podcast network, host Jason Jimenez, who's also a pastor and founder of Stand Strong Ministries, was joined by apologist Sean McDowell to discuss why some 60% of professing Christians believe cohabitation and sex outside of marriage are OK. Jimenez said that he and McDowell, who hosts classes on premarital sex and marriage at Summit Ministries, wanted to speak...

Marriage better supports individual and social wellbeing, and the government can and should reinforce its value through economic incentives. Cohabitation, not so much.In the wake of the sexual revolution, the increasing popularity of cohabitation is an alarming trend. Cohabitation, the practice of a romantically involved couple living together while unmarried, has doubled since 1995, with 12 percent of adults under the age of 30 living with their sexual partners. As cohabitation has become more accepted by Americans, there is also increasing support (from 65 percent of American adults, to be precise) for cohabitating couples receiving the same economic and tax...

"Mom, Joe and I have decided to live together," my strong-willed 23-year-old daughter announced defiantly at our dining-room table, her boyfriend at her side. Her words made my heart pound and my stomach churn. "Have either of you even thought about the possibility you could get pregnant?" My daughter looked sheepishly at her boyfriend, admitting they hadn't. The defiance swept over her face again and she replied, "Well, I don't care what you and Dad think. You'll just have to accept it." "We may have to tolerate it," I said firmly. "But we'll never accept it. You're going, against every...

Recently, researchers at State University of New York determined that descendants of immigrants to the United States typically lost the ability to speak their mother tongue by the third generation. Something similar, but far more serious, seems to be happening with Christians in an increasingly post-Christian culture. Each successive generation is losing the understanding of, not to mention the will to live by, Christian sexual morality. Two years ago, a Pew Research survey found that half of American Christians think casual sex is “sometimes or always” morally acceptable. The slight silver-lining in that survey was that evangelical Protestants were by...

The share of adults who have lived with a romantic partner is now higher than the share who have ever been married; married adults are more satisfied with their relationships, more trusting of their partners.As more U.S. adults are delaying marriage – or forgoing it altogether – the share who have ever lived with an unmarried partner has been on the rise. Amid these changes, most Americans find cohabitation acceptable, even for couples who don’t plan to get married, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Even so, a narrow majority says society is better off if couples in...

NEW YORK, July 5 (C-Fam) Are divorce, cohabitation, same sex marriage, out of wedlock birth and adolescent sex good for women? The latest report from UN Women considers them “a positive reflection of women’s empowerment.” UN Women calls family life “an ambivalent space for women and girls.” “Families can have a darker side: they can be places of violence and discrimination, spaces where women and girls are often denied the resources they need, where they sometimes eat least and last and where their voices are stifled and their autonomy is denied,” the report says, concluding, “As such, the recognition of...

Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice for England and Wales, has said society should “welcome and applaud” the collapse traditional nuclear family life. “What is the family?” asked the wealthy 69-year-old at in a lecture at the University of Liverpool. “Time was when most people probably thought the answer was not merely clear but obvious. Today it is more complex,” he suggested...

The best prediction of a successful marriage is being able to live together and that's especially the case when in a small space. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, however, are already well on their way to passing that test. The future newlyweds are currently living in just 1,300 square feet at Kensington Palace.

I remember a LOT of discussion during the '80s and '90s about what was going to happen in the future to the kids whose parents were feeding them mood-altering drugs like Ritalin to calm the little hellions down. Are we seeing the results right now?

Another holiday brought another slaughter of innocents in heavily gun-controlled Chicago. Fifty-six people were shot during Father’s Day weekend, and 13 of those shooting victims died. This brings the number shot in Chicago to “about 1,800 people” year-t0-date, the Tribune reports.

The pope’s most recent comments on marriage point in a disturbing direction but let’s address two important matters first. Point One. Cohabitation is not marriage. Largely overlooked amid the furor caused by Pope Francis’ rash claim that “the great part of our sacramental marriages are null”—an assertion reckless if false (which it is) and brimming with despair if true (which it is not), a claim followed not by an apology, an official retraction, or even a bureaucratic ‘clarification’ but instead by an Orwellian alteration of the pope’s words in Vatican records—overlooked, I say, in this greater mess was the pope’s...

Choice and Consequences By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe themes of early Lent are pretty basic. The ashes of Ash Wednesday announce the simple truth that we are going to die and  thereafter face judgment. Hence, we need to repent and come to believe the good news that only Jesus can save us.Another early reading from Thursday after Ash Wednesday featured Moses laying out the basic reality that all of us have a choice to make. He says to us,Today I have set before youlife and prosperity, death and doom …I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:I have set before you life...

The proliferation of research and literature about the sexual and marital habits of “Millennials” is staggering. Research indicates a casual or cavalier approach to sexual intimacy and of marriage. Marriage is increasingly postponed or rejected in favor of transitional “trial marriages” or temporary live-in situations glamorized today in popular media as “the next step” in intimate relationships.The intimate relationship choices of young adults today expose a culture that increasingly fails to appreciate moral norms and the inherent value and beauty of marriage. The rapid acceptance of cohabitation and the dissolution of a culture of marriage in the wake of...

A federal appeals court will review a ruling that struck down parts of Utah's anti-polygamy law and was hailed as a landmark decision removing the threat of arrest for plural families in Utah. The Utah's attorney general's office filed an appeal Thursday with the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, two weeks after it ended speculation by announcing it would challenge the ruling. The lawsuit was brought by the family on the TLC reality TV show "Sister Wives." In December, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled in favor of reality show star Kody Brown and his four wives, saying...

Despite the lack of cultural support for positive practices that help couples toward healthy marriage relationships, the good news is that individuals have control over their relationship choices.Most young people want a happy marriage and family life. As a new report from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia shows, the choices people make in their relationships prior to marriage matter. Unfortunately, the laissez-faire sexual practices embraced and promoted in our culture today don’t build a strong foundation for marriage. According to the report, authored by Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley of the University of Denver,...

A judge ruled Wednesday that the law making polygamy illegal in Utah is unconstitutional. Here’s what you need to know: What just happened? A federal judge in Salt Lake City — Clark Waddoups — issued a final ruling in the so-called Sister Wives case, which is known for the TLC show that prompted it. Sister Wives stars the polygamous Brown family, who sued in 2011 because officials where they lived threatened to come after them. The Brown family won their biggest victory in December, when the judge said the Utah law that made polygamy illegal — and which would have...

I want to discuss a very alarming new study that indicates that over 40% of children are born outside of marriage in this country. This situation is growing very serious and needs to be addressed in our parishes and homes. Here is a brief excerpt of the article:The number of children born outside marriage in the United States has increased dramatically to four out of ten of all births. Figures show that 41 per cent of children born in 2008 did not have married parents – up from 28 per cent in 1990. Researchers have concluded that although Christian values...