Cohabitation

Cohabitation is a tentative, nonlegal coresidential union that does not require or imply a lifetime commitment to stay together. Perhaps as a result, cohabiting unions break up at a much higher rate than do marriages. Cohabitors have no responsibility for financial support of their partner, and most do not pool financial resources. Cohabitors are more likely than married couples both to value separate leisure activities and to keep their social lives independent and are much less likely than husbands and wives to be monogamous. Cohabitors may choose this arrangement because it carries no formal constraints or responsibilities.

A substantial proportion of cohabiting couples have definite plans to marry, and these couples tend to behave like already-married couples. Others have no plans to marry, and these tentative and uncommitted relationships are quite fragile. The tentative, impermanent, and socially unsupported nature of this latter type of cohabitation impedes the ability of this type of partnership to deliver many of the benefits of marriage, as do the relatively separate lives typically pursued by cohabiting partners. The uncertainty about the stability and longevity of the relationship makes both investment in the relationship and specialization with this partner much riskier than in marriage, for the partners themselves and for their extended families, friends, and communities. The lack of sharing typical of cohabitors disadvantages the women and their children in these families relative to the men, because women typically earn less than men; this is especially true for mothers. Cohabitation seems to distance people from some important social institutions, especially organized religion. Young men and women who define themselves as “religious” are less likely to cohabit, and those who cohabit subsequently become less religious.