The Advantages of Cohabitation vs. Marriage The word “cohabitation” has just recently had an explosion in the nuclear mindset of today’s people. As one researcher states in an article of Psychology Today, “Cohabitation is here to stay.” The studies he conducted were focused on just on US but a range of countries seem to follow the same pattern of major changes to cohabitation (Taibbi). Unlike marriage where a couple is immediately thrown together to provide a stable revenue and contribute to one another which can go positively or very negatively, cohabitation is becoming a standard procedure to check off your list to see if one can actually survive with their partner. The process for cohabitation has increased to significant numbers, in …show more content…
Tax reductions, income, and bills can all be a headache in marriage and make couples see the advantages of cohabiting. As Described by Fenaba Addo, an Assistant Professor of Consumer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies in family and social welfare, nearly one-third of cohabiting young adults mentioned that finances influenced their decision to cohabit …show more content…
However this can also create an issue if the couple for one is having issues with work such as one partner being unemployed. The beauty of cohabitation is that you file your own taxes because there is no tie or legalized bond between the couple so you would get the money you earned. This is the fairest way when talking about tax returns because no one can siphon money off the money you earned back. Cohabitation can also be beneficial for the economy because this means that not only one person is bringing in income so both are pushed to go out in the market and urge to get jobs. In an article written by Cristina Bradatan, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas Tech University who studies in social inequality and has a background in Psychology, talks about the benefits of cohabitation for women in a relationship. She says in her article that, “Historically, marriage was the only source of a steady income for women, but nowadays a woman can have her own job and enjoy the financial security that comes with it” (492). Since these women don’t feel the need to be tied down in a marriage due to finances creates self-confidence within women and fairly allows the relationship to be two people putting in effort in order to
Imagine you just had a baby and you are taking him/her home today. It comes to bed time; would you have your child sleep with you in the bed or in a crib? Co-sleeping is an important decision when it comes to parenting. Co-sleeping is when a baby, from birth to age two, sleeps with their parents in the same bed. It is also a big discussion if co-sleeping is a good idea or not. Many people have different opinions. I have a couple of sources that look at both sides of the issue. Three of the sources are blogs. Two out of the three shows advantages of co-sleeping and the other is against co-sleeping. My mother, who is another source, is against co-sleeping due to some experience with me when I was a baby. One study that is very interesting looks
These days, marriage contracts fortunately treat both men and women the same, and look at it as more of a partnership rather than a legal contract with economical advantages. (Bernstein, 2011) Today, women have more goals than getting married and having children, most want to go to college and having a successful career. It is normal for a woman to be completely successful all on her own without a husband. These days, a woman can be the bread winner of her family while her husband is a stay at home father. There are also several single working mothers and single working
Cohabitation, over the last two decades has gone from being a relatively uncommon social phenomenon to a commonplace one and has achieved this prominence quite quickly. A few sets of numbers convey both the change and its rapidity. The percentage of marriages preceded by cohabitation rose from about 10% for those marrying between 1965 and 1974 to over 50% for those marrying between 1990 and 1994 (Bumpass and Lu 1999, Bumpass & Sweet 1989); the percentage is even higher for remarriages. Secondly, the percentage of women in their late 30s who report having cohabited at least once rose from 30% in 1987 to 48% in 1995. Given a mere eight year tome window, this is a striking increase. Finally, the proportion of all first unions (including both marriages and cohabitation) that begin as cohabitations rose from 46% for unions formed between 1980 and 1984 to almost 60% for those formed between 1990 and 1994 (Bumpass and Lu 1999).
Smock, Pamela and Wendy Manning. 2010. “New Couples, New Families: The Cohabitation Revolution in the United States.” Pp. 131-139 in Families as They Really Are, ed. Barbara Risman. NY: W.W. Norton and Company.
This societal acceptance has made it easier for couples to live together without being married. Many of these men and women decide to live together because they consider the cohabitation a "trial marriage." They fe...
Marriage is a commitment that seems to be getting harder to keep. The social standards placed on an individual by society and influenced by the media inevitably lead some to consider divorce as a “quick-fix” option. “Have it your way” has become a motto in the United States. It has become a country without any consideration of the psychological effects of marriage and divorce. The overwhelmingly high divorce rate is caused by a lack of moral beliefs and marital expectations.
In her text, she states that cohabitation has become very famous in the United States. Jay also reports that young adults in their twenties see cohabitation as a preventive way to avoid divorce. The perception that she contradicts by pointing out that people who cohabit before marriage are more at risk of divorce because once they are married they become unsatisfied of their marriage, she calls this phenomenon the cohabitation effect. The author also punctuates that the problem of the cohabitation effect is that lovers do not really discuss their personal perception of cohabitation or what it will mean for them. Instead, they slide into cohabitation, get married, and divorce after realizing that they made a mistake. She proves her point by presenting a research which shows that women and men have a different interpretation of cohabitating prior marriage. Furthermore, the author emphasizes her argument by saying that the problem is not starting a cohabiting relationship but leaving that relationship which can be the real issue after all the time and money invested. Finally, Jay indicates that American’s mindset about their romantic relationship is changing and can be illustrated by the fact that more Americans started to see cohabitation as a commitment before
In the article “Grounds for Marriage: How Relationships Succeed or Fail” by Arlene Skolnick talks a lot about how the attitudes towards marriages now a days is much different then what peoples attitudes have been in the past. The article talks about how there are two parts of every marriage “the husband’s and the wife’s”. This article touches on the affects cohabitation, and how cohabitation is more likely to happen among younger adults. This article talks about how the younger adults are more inclined to cohabitate before marriage, and that currently the majority of couples that are interring in to marriage have previously lived together. The article stats that some of the Possible reasons for couples to live together before marriage might include shifting norms
N.p., 2013. Web. 11 May 2014. Leckey, Robert. " Cohabitation and Comparative Method.
Nowadays, the pre-martial cohabitation concept has been widely used across many places. The current generation tends to cohabit outside of marriage at least once in their lifetime. Bruce Wydick argued that, “cohabitation may be narrowly defined as an intimate sexual union between two unmarried partners who share the same living quarter for a sustained period of time’’ (2). In other words, people who want to experience what being in a relationship truly is, tend to live under one roof and be more familiar with one another. Couples are on the right path to establishing a committed relationship where the discussion about marriage is considered as the next step.
The family is the main agent of socialisation and an institution. (Giddens, 2013:339). As children, we rely on our family to fulfil basic needs. We all need guidance, and more importantly we also require nurturing to become healthy adults. The definition of family varies across cultures. However, the family is sensitive to change and, therefore, not static. The structure of the family has changed, and culture and society are now more accepting of the fact that people now choose to cohabit, rather than marry. (Haralambos & Holborn 2009:3). In 2013, there were nearly 1.9 million lone parent households with dependent children in the United Kingdom; a figure which has steadily increased over the years (Office of National Statistics 2013). The rise in lone parents has brought about greater acceptance of pregnancies that do not have to involve marriage although acceptance is not the concern. A study suggests that….
As a result of ensuring a partner’s financial and personal stability prior to marriage divorce rates can be depressed for a few reason. Initially,
There are three reasons that cohabitation before marriage is beneficial; it allows couples to learn one another and as a team forms an identity, decide if marriage is for you, and lowers the divorce rate.
The first cause of increased divorce rates is because of women completely changing their household status. In past generations, men had to earn all the money for the family expenses. Women primarily took care of the home and focused on raising the children. They usually did not contribute financially to the family causing them to depend on ...
The family has joint incomes if both the husband and the wife are working. The two can also share expenses and financial burdens as costs are higher per person than when sharing (Riper). Other benefits are a joint health insurance policy which is cheaper compared to the premiums that the single individual pays. Being single would mean that you have control over your finances, unlike the married people who have to share their financial information presupposing that the couple has solid trust in their marriage. When one gets married, the family becomes their primary focus in life. Therefore, the single individual has a better chance to focus on his/her career and achieve more financial benefits from his