Statistics on Living Together Before Marriage
April 18, 2008
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Posted by Ray Fowler
Living Together Before Marriage Series:
● Statistics on Living Together Before Marriage
● Scriptures on Living Together Before Marriage
● Living Together Without Sex
● What If We Already Lived Together Before Marriage?
Here are some statistics on living together before marriage from Michael McManus, author of the book Marriage Savers. Statistically speaking, living together is not a trial of marriage, but rather a training for divorce.
- The number of unmarried couples living together soared 12-fold from 430,000 in 1960 to 5.4 million in 2005.
- More than eight out of ten couples who live together will break up either before the wedding or afterwards in divorce.
- About 45 percent of those who begin cohabiting, do not marry. Another 5-10 percent continue living together and do not marry.
- Couples who do marry after living together are 50% more likely to divorce than those who did not.
- Only 12 percent of couples who have begun their relationship with cohabitation end up with a marriage lasting 10 years or more.
- A Penn State study reports that even a month’s cohabitation decreases the quality of the couple’s relationship.
Here are some more statistics relating to the children of cohabiting parents.
- Children of cohabiting parents are ten times more likely to be sexually abused by a stepparent than by a parent.
- Children of cohabiting parents are three times as likely to be expelled from school or to get pregnant as teenagers than children from an intact home with married parents.
- Children of cohabiting parents are five times more apt to live in poverty, and 22 times more likely to incarcerated.
Check out the other posts in the Living Together Before Marriage series:
● Statistics on Living Together Before Marriage
● Scriptures on Living Together Before Marriage
● Living Together Without Sex
● What If We Already Lived Together Before Marriage?
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Categories: Children, Marriage
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“Statistically speaking, living together is not a trial of marriage, but rather a training for divorce.”
Beware of the difference between “cause” and “correlation” when dealing with statistics like this. Those who would not and do not cohabitate before marriage are, in general, going to have a higher view of marriage–I would guess many of those have those beliefs based on a faith system like Christianity. Thus, these people would believe marriage more special than those who would treat it more casually, and therefore are less likely to seek divorce. It’s not necessarily the fact that they cohabitated that caused more divorce–it’s the lower view of marriage that led to cohabitation in the first place. The cohabitation would therefore be a symptom, as opposed to a cause, of a growing societal disregard of marriage.
As for the statistics about children of cohabiting parents, I would guess much of those statistics are skewed by the circumstances of those in poverty as much as anything else. Lower income populations tend to have a disproportionately large amount of “serial monogamy,” mothers with children from multiple fathers who move from partner to partner in search of some kind of stability, and actually wind up with just the opposite. This problem (a soft word–tragedy is probably better) is becoming generational and endemic to lower economic classes, as children are being raised who have no “flesh-and- blood” example of a traditional intact family.
Rich – Great points, and a good reminder that correlation does not necessarily mean cause.
Brad – Are you out there? Any thoughts on cause and correlation with regard to these statistics? (Brad is a sociologist who sometimes reads over here.)
Along the same lines, my sociology of poverty class discussed this issue and discovered the same stats but also our professor pointed out the cause v. correlation. She cited selection bias- that those who cohabit, and breakup/divorce, have characteristics that lead them to select cohabitation that also make it more likely they will divorce in the first place. She freely admitted that she wouldn’t care if her own kids cohabited.
I tend to believe that she is right. I really don’t see the need to tell non-believers that they are “wrong” for co-habiting- we are not to judge those outside the church. At the same time, I will freely state my opinion if asked, and, if it is believers, my belief that there is no cause has absolutely no bearing on the rightness or wrongness.
Another whole big issue is economic incentives. Two co-habiting parents with 2 kids and $20,000 each in income qualify for 2 Earned Income Tax Credits, worth perhaps 4,000. If they marry? Zilch, over the max EIC guidelines. I met someone recently who is cohabiting, expecting his second child, is a grad student. His girlfriend has very little income, he has quite a bit. She is entitled to the State insurance for expecting mothers/moms/kids called Kid Care. If they marry, they lose that coverage.
It wasn’t meant to be a disincentive to marriage, and I don’t think this info should be used to deride the government transfer system- use principled critiques if you wish to do so, and be consistent (i.e., the middle class should get no tax breaks for mortgage interest, etc…) However, it is certainly the law of unintended consequences and has become entrenched in our culture. At this point, even if we changed the laws/incentives across the board, I don’t think marriage would pick back up.
Chris – Thanks for weighing in and bringing up the economic side of all this as well. It is a shame that the economics are set up in such a way that it makes marriage all that more difficult for people. As far as the moral side of the issue, I purposely just presented the statistics in this particular post. I plan to present some of the moral issues in a future post.
As far as cause and correlation, a number of commenters have rightly pointed out that we cannot automatically assume cause just because of correlation. At the same time, we should be careful not to dismiss cause just because of correlation. Although there are certainly other factors involved, I can see a number of reasons why living together would be a less stable relationship than marriage. So we shouldn’t be too quick to throw cause out of the equation. This is still just looking at it from a statistical perspective. We will get to the moral side of it later.
I agree with Rich’s comment, and would add one thing:
If we’re looking at this from a Christian’s perspective, couples living together before or outside of marriage is clearly prohibited by scripture, and is a lifestyle not congruent with the Christian profession of faith. Thus, people who do it are unbelievers, or they’re living in some serious disobedience.
When we consider this, we may better understand the divorce rate, for people who are lost and enslaved to sin, and are demonstrating it in this manner, are not near as likely to stick things out in marriage.
From a personal experience, I know a couple who were living together at the time of their conversion, eventually repented and lived separately, and then went on to marry later down the road. They’re marriage is very stable and grounded in the Lord, and I would argue that their previous living together has absolutely no bearing on things now.
So I believe that living together is a symptom of a greater problem which leads to even greater problems, rather than a main cause.
Hope that made sense
Nathan – The fact that your friends moved apart and lived separately for a time before marriage probably helped their marriage in the long run. The fact that their marriage is grounded in the Lord is even more important. When both partners in a marriage are focused on Christ that will help them overcome many potential obstacles.
Some good points raised, and I don’t know if I have much to add to them. If we assume that people who live together have different marriage experiences than those who don’t previously live together, that simple fact can be interpreted in different ways. (As identified by previous commentators).
- Personal selection: Maybe certain types of people opt into living together, people who would have had less favorable marriage experiences anyway.
- Relationship selection: Maybe certain types of relations result in living together first–maybe if the people aren’t sure of the relationship. So a trial run represents estimated uncertainty about the relation.
- Causal effect of living together: Maybe the experience of living together changes the people/relationships in certain ways.
Ideally (in terms of knowledge), we would do an experiment in which we randomly assign couples to live together first or go straight to marriage. This being ethically impractical, there are various statistical techniques for approximating an experiment.
In terms of these statistics, we would have to read more about the studies that they came from to know how much, if at all, they tried to rule out alternative causal explanations.
Interesting post, Ray!
Hi Brad! – Thanks for adding your thoughts on this. Statistics can be really slippery animals at times.
One has to ask himself on a theological level, why does someone who alreay places such a low importance on marriage as to live together even desire to get married in the first place.
Of course there are instances of “post-cohabitation conversion” to Christianity as mentioned above, but why do couple who are not Christians and have no issue with living together/having sex before marriage even want to be married?
It is after all a faith based institution.
One thing to keep in mind is that very religious people are probably not going to live together. Very religious people are probably also not going to get divorced, no matter what happens. That can be both a good and a bad thing. Good, because it forces them to try harder to keep the relationship going; bad because even in bad relationships, these people will stay together. That will then increase the number of relationships in which living together leads to long marriages, good or bad. It skews the statistics. Does that necessarily mean that living together is worse? In this case, no.
On the other end of the spectrum you have people skewing the statistics who have no respect for themselves or marriage or sex at all. They move from person to person without any degree of commitment and even have children while living with someone. Does their poor example mean much? These people also skew the statistics.
One interesting thing is an old saying, “Why would a man buy a cow if he gets the milk for free.” In other words, if a man is getting sex, why would he get married?
In my mind, I would never want a man who only wanted me for ‘milk’. I would want a man who loved the cow itself, and would pay any price for it regardless of the milk he was getting. If marriage is about sex, then I agree with the above poster – I want no part of it.
But I don’t think marriage is about that. I think marriage is about love, commitment, and partnership. Sex is simply a primal, animalistic urge that has little relevance in the bulk of what makes a healthy marriage. The desire for sex obscures your logical sense of the true person. I would not trust a man’s proposal if he was sexually frustrated. It would be meaningless to me. I rarely meet a person who thinks abstinence is a smart idea before marriage (especially considering that 95% of Americans have sex before marriage). If you are not living together, but you are having sex, what exactly are you trying to prove? It’s false pretense, if anything.
Getting involved with the right person is important. Getting to know them first is important. Marriage should mean more, I think, than, “I want to have regular sex, so I guess I’ll get married.” Marriage, I believe, is something that happens when the time is right – not just when you want to share a house. So it is because I respect marriage that I believe in living together. If you are already getting the milk, but you still want the cow, that, to me, is what matters.
Another correlation? People who wait for sex until marriage tend to get married sooner. Probably because they are weighing the benefits of sex into their marriage, rather than marrying the person for their own virtues. Maybe that’s why people who marry younger tend to have a higher rate of divorce. That’s breaking a logical law, I know, but is something to think about.
Clock – Thank you for weighing in on this. I am not sure that I followed all of your arguments, but I do agree with you that marriage is more than just sex. However, I also believe sex in marriage is more than just animalistic urges. It is part of the give and take and intimacy of the marriage relationship. I believe God designed the sexual relationship for the intimacy of a lifelong committed partnership in marriage, and that sexual involvement and living together outside of marriage short-changes that intimacy. Although I believe living together before marriage is harmful to the marriage relationship, the main reason not to live together before marriage is a moral reason rather than a practical reason. I will be posting on the moral side of this issue some time in the next couple weeks.
what is some scriptual background on this.
i want to look it up.
Tyler – Here is a related post you can check out: Scriptures on Living Together Before Marriage
Hello:
My name is Debra Capperrune and I am writing a book titled Wake Up and Smell the Culture. One of my chapters I talk about cohabitation. I am asking for permissions to please use the statistics on living together before marriage from Michael McManus, the president of Marriage Savers. Thank you for your time and concern for any considerations.
Sincerely,
Debra Capperrune
Debra – Thanks for visiting and thanks for asking. I believe it is okay for you to cite the statistics as long as you give proper credit to the source. You may want to check with Marriage Savers directly. You can contact them here: Marriage Savers Contact Form All the best with your book project. I like the title!
I wrote a poem and put it online (a public journal) where people could view and comment. I was not into chat lines and do not have a myspace. I simply shared my talent. A wonderful woman from New Zealand read the poem and commented. We talked for over a half a year on the phone (sometimes 6-8 hours per day), wrote each other via e-mail and postal.
After 7 months of getting to know all about each other, we decided to get married. God provided me with enough funds to stay almost two weeks in New Zealand for our honeymoon. We also got married on my wife’s 21st birthday and decided to save our first kiss for our wedding day!
It was the most beautiful time of my entire life. We have bee happily married for 3 and a half years now and still enjoy holding hands and cuddling. People think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. I attribute our loving bond to the fact we chose not to live together and we waited for intimacy before marrying.
hello, ok so me and my fiance do not plan on living together before we are married but i do have a question. Is it wrong to get married at a town hall rather than church? this is my story, im 20 and my fiance is a yr younger than me we are both christians been saved for some years now, but we end up falling and having sex a year into our relationship and he is my first. Im am now 7 months pregnant with his child and we planned on getting married way before we knew this so he proposed but now that we have a baby on the way things changed, we decided to up the marriage date to sometime before the baby is born so we can live together and help eachother out. We dont want to go against God or anything by not getting married by our pastor but no one is helping us with counseling we get taken for a joke because we are young but we know what we want and we are very serious, we know marriage is a BIG STEP but we are willing to take that big step and do everything in our power to remain strong, for this month we have been fasting so we can prepare for getting married. we still want to do a wedding but a year later because we are preparing for our baby and we still want counseling but no one is taking the time for us so we want to just get married somewhere before the baby comes. is that wrong?? i need HELp . thank you
Sha – I commend you and your fiance for desiring to get married rather than live together. I am sorry you are not getting the support you would like. I believe premarital counseling is very valuable and encourage all couples to get counseling before marriage. I would encourage you to talk to your pastor and tell him how important the counseling is to you. Even if he cannot provide it, perhaps he can get you in touch with someone who can.
As far as getting married in the church or by a justice of the peace, it is not wrong to get married at the town hall. The important thing is that your hearts are right with God. Some people get married in church, but their hearts are not right with God. Perhaps the town hall wedding with a church ceremony later is the best plan at this time.
All the best! Ray
wow thank you so much!!! i feel alot better, i am definitely going to talk to someone because we DO want counseling. Thanks alot and you are right we have to make sure are hearts are right with God because marriage is one of the Biggest ministries in itself and the enemy waits just to attack it so we want to be prepared to fight him. thanks alot again God bless u