Couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married, a new study has found. But their chances improve if they were already engaged when they began living together.

The likelihood that a marriage would last for a decade or more decreased by six percentage points if the couple had cohabited first, the study found.

The study of men and women ages 15 to 44 was done by the National Center for Health Statistics using data from the National Survey of Family Growth conducted in 2002. The authors define cohabitation as people who live with a sexual partner of the opposite sex.

“From the perspective of many young adults, marrying without living together first seems quite foolish,” said Prof. Pamela J. Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “Just because some academic studies have shown that living together may increase the chance of divorce somewhat, young adults themselves don’t believe that.”

The authors found that the proportion of women in their late 30s who had ever cohabited had doubled in 15 years, to 61 percent. ...

The survey found that about 28 percent of men and women had cohabitated before their first marriage and that about 7 percent lived together and never married. About 23 percent of women and 18 percent of men married without having lived together.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births

posted by Eve at 2:26 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Married parents are ten times more likely to stay together than cohabiting couples with children, according to research.

The study also showed cohabiting has become a less stable form of relationship compared with 18 years ago, with couples more likely to separate.

Figures show that in 1992, 70 per cent of couples who had children after they were married stayed together until their child's 16th birthday.

This increased to 75 per cent in 2006, showing that marriage has become a more stable family background for youngsters.

However, only 36 per cent of cohabiting parents stayed together until their son or daughter reached 16 in 1992. By 2006, just 7 per cent of couples who were unmarried when their child was born were still cohabiting by their 16th birthday.

This figure excludes those couples who were just living together when their child was born and later got married.

Around three in five couples who stop cohabiting decide to marry. Of these just 17 per cent are still together by the time their child is 16, the report says.

The study, Cohabitation in the 21st Century, from Christian thinktank the Jubilee Centre also shows that the cost of family breakdown is £41.7billion -- equivalent to £1,350 for every taxpayer each year.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:39 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A total of 232,990 couples wed in 2008, down 1% on the year before, Office for National Statistics figures showed.

For every 1,000 adult men, 21.8 married in 2008, compared with 22.4 in 2007. For women aged over 16 it was 19.6 per 1,000, down from 20.2 the year before.

The Church of England said marriage was now seen as the crown of a relationship rather than a gateway to adulthood. ...

The think tank Civitas said that despite the drop in marriage rates, more than 60% of young unmarried parents surveyed in 2007 actually wanted to marry.

It said young people wanted certain things in place before saying "I do", with the top three being a partner to whom they wanted to commit, financial stability and home ownership.

A spokesperson said: "The question is, will people who want to marry succeed in doing so? Or are high rates of unmarried parenting indicators of thwarted aspirations?"

Resolution, a group of family lawyers, said the legal benefits of tying the knot should be extended to cohabiting but unmarried couples.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 2:11 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

In a recent newsletter, the National Organization for Marriage cites a new government study as evidence that gay marriage will hurt kids, because the research finds that kids suffer less abuse with married biological parents than with a single parent, a parent living with an unmarried partner, or a parent and step-parent.

They got it half right. Having two married biological parents is good for kids, and better than the alternatives the study examined. We here at IGF are all for it. But that doesn't make having, say, an unmarried mom and mom better than having a married mom and mom. As a correspondent points out:

Does NOM never, ever learn? These same figures indicate that for either two-adult family structure (both biological parents, or one biological and one step-parent) the chance of abuse to the child goes down drastically IF THE COUPLE GETS MARRIED. For the first kind of family, the risk drops 80 percent. For the second kind of family, the risk drops nearly 60 percent. Even for single biological parents, the child's risk drops by about 15 percent if that single parent finds and marries someone.

Labels: cohabitation, gay marriage, gay parenting, Jonathan Rauch, Maggie Gallagher, Marriage, NOM, parenting, remarriage, single parenting

posted by Eve at 1:47 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.

The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."

The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single. ...

For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 -- a "penalty" of $2,084. Those figures were included in a memo prepared by House Republican staff. ...

Democratic staff who helped to write the bill confirmed the existence of the penalty, but said it cannot be remedied without creating other inequities.

For instance, they said making the subsidies neutral towards marriage would lead to a married couple with only one bread-winner getting a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income-level.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, poverty, tax policy

posted by Eve at 2:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Call it shacking up, living in sin or love without the paperwork -- more older Canadians are choosing it over traditional marriage.

The most recent census figures show big increases in the number of people over age 50 in common-law unions, with the most significant growth in the early-60s crowd. At the same time, the practice has nearly flatlined or even declined among the twenty- and thirtysomethings who used to scandalize their parents by moving in together.

The baby boomers are inflating the ranks of the 50-plus in general, but experts say that between more liberal social attitudes, a "been there, done that" mentality among those who have been divorced and the lack of financial incentive to marry, many older Canadians simply don't feel the need to walk down the aisle.

"We choose to stay common-law because, quite frankly, there's nothing in it for us to get married. There's no financial advantage; we need to file our income tax together anyway," says Jenni Hopkyns, 61, who's been living with her partner, Mike, in Victoria for four years. "We said 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' It seems to be working well."

Hopkyns had been married twice before and her 67-year-old partner had been married once, and she says seeing marriage vows break down makes another ceremony less enticing.

"It's not to mean that we're any less committed, because I wouldn't say that at all," she says. "We've just made a commitment to each other every day."

Between 2001 and 2006, the most recent year for which census data are available, the number of Canadians in common-law relationships shot up 77 per cent among those ages 60 to 64 and between 44 and 64 per cent for all other age groups over 50.

Labels: Canada, cohabitation, committed relationships, common-law, Marriage

posted by Eve at 12:08 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Today, National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) released Mama Says: A National Survey of Moms' Attitudes on Fathering, the first-ever national survey taking an in-depth look at how today's mothers view fathers and fatherhood.

The survey's most revealing findings deal with the enormous gulf between the assessments of fathers by mothers who are married to or live with their children's dads and those who do not. More than 8 in 10 mothers married to or living with the father of their children were satisfied with his performance as a dad, but only 2 of 10 mothers not living with the father were satisfied.

Furthermore, only 1 of 3 moms not living with dad reported a "close and warm" relationship between their child and the father, while nearly 9 in 10 married mothers classified the relationship as close and warm. A majority of mothers - 2 of 3 - agreed that fathers perform best if they are married to the mothers of their children. ...

The most troublesome finding for those who view fathers as playing unique roles in their children lives is the majority opinion among mothers that fathers are replaceable by moms or other men. More than half of the moms agree that fathers are replaceable by moms, and 2 of 3 moms agree that fathers are replaceable by other men. However, in a national survey of dads' attitudes on fatherhood, Pop's Culture, released by NFI in 2006, similar but slightly lower proportions of fathers agreed with these statements.

Therefore, it seems to be a majority view in the American public that fathers are replaceable despite near universal agreement that there is a father absence crisis in the United States - 93 percent and 91 percent of moms and dads, respectively, agree that such a crisis exists. The mothers who feel fathers are replaceable but feel there is a father absence crisis may believe that while possible, it is unlikely that an adequate substitute for a missing father can be found.

Labels: cohabitation, Fathers, Marriage, motherhood, National Fatherhood Initiative, out-of-wedlock births

posted by Eve at 11:58 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A NEW survey [pdf] from the National Fatherhood Initiative finds that 93% of American mothers believe there is a "father-absence crisis" in the country.

And absent fathers tend to have worse relationships with their children. Mothers are much more likely to report that the father of their child has a "close and warm" relationship with that child if he is living with the family.

A hefty 89% of married mothers thought this, and 85% of co-habitees. But in cases where the father is not living with the family, only 34% of mothers thought he had a warm and close relationship with a given child.

Interestingly, this survey finds little difference between married and co-habiting fathers. But Kathryn Edin, a professor of public policy at Harvard, warned that co-habiting relationships in America are much more likely to break up than those in some European countries.

Labels: cohabitation, Fathers, Marriage, National Fatherhood Initiative

posted by Eve at 10:29 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Counselors and those who study dating, marriage and divorce say plenty of couples get married when they shouldn't. And their numbers may be increasing, because more couples are casually living together, which can complicate decisions about whether to marry, says Scott Stanley, co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.

Stanley says his research on couples who cohabit before marriage has found that "some of those wouldn't have married if they hadn't been living together."

"People have committed themselves before talking about the commitment to the future, and that can get you walking down the aisle not being sure that's the right thing, or what you want to do," he says.

Stories of people entering marriages they felt were doomed from the start intrigued Carl Weisman of Torrance, Calif., whose book, So Why Have You Never Been Married? 10 Insights Into Why He Hasn't Wed, arrived last year. He says a divorced woman he knows said something he thought was quite profound: "I didn't listen to my inner voice. I knew I was going to divorce him before I even married him." That led Weisman to thinking about others who went into a marriage knowing it wouldn't last. But he couldn't find any academic research on the subject.

So Weisman, 50, who recently married for the first time, surveyed 1,036 people across the country and conducted in-depth interviews with dozens more for his new book, Serious Doubts: Why People Marry When They Know It Won't Last.

Those surveyed had one thing in common: "They all ignored their inner voice," he says. "They knew it wasn't going to last." ...

Donahue, who cohabited before her 11-year marriage (which ended five years ago), says she didn't heed some early signals, including religious differences. Her parents also didn't approve of their living together without being married, which Donahue says encouraged her to wed. "I was thinking that we were in love and we're going to make it work. I believed in this whole fairy-tale thing on marriage."

Other reasons for proceeding in the face of doubts may also sound familiar – like pregnancy.

That's why Neumann, 26, a non-profit market researcher from Chicago, says she went ahead with it. "I had some concerns in the relationship, but I thought if I got married, we would grow together," she says. "I was 18 at the time and thought it would all work out in the end."

Others may think a partner is too good a catch to pass up – even though there's no spark.

Rasmussen, 51, an office manager in Boise, says she tried to convince herself that she and her second husband were a good match. They enjoyed many of the same activities, including travel. She had financial resources, yet he offered to help her with her kids' college expenses.

She wasn't head over heels, but he was attractive and generous, so Rasmussen told herself "You can learn to love this guy."

Labels: cohabitation, culture, divorce, Marriage, pregnancy, premarital sex

posted by Eve at 5:41 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Senate Democrats' health care bill would create a new marriage penalty by imposing a tax on individuals who make $200,000 annually but hitting married couples making just $50,000 more. ...

Democrats said the bill will offer lower health care costs for small businesses and families, and said the new taxes are aimed at upper-income earners, so costs would not go up for the middle class. They said that makes good on President Obama's campaign pledge not to increase taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year, which explains the reason for the new marriage penalty.

"We wanted to make this provision consistent with the president's pledge not to increase taxes on singles making under $200,000 and married couples making under $250,000," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who wrote the Senate bill.

"Yes, this structure can create a 'marriage penalty' for some couples. It also creates a 'marriage bonus' for others," he said. "A married couple with one wage earner can earn up to $250,000 without facing this higher tax, whereas a single person in the same job with the same pay would be hit by it."

But a married couple in which each earner makes $150,000 would be hit with the tax, whereas an unmarried couple living together with the same incomes would not.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, marriage penalty, poverty, tax policy

posted by Eve at 3:30 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Want to be a happy married couple? Consider having kids. A new study found that having children boosts happiness. And the more, literally, the merrier.

But unmarried couples shouldn't expect to find greater happiness through child-raising. The study, published in the Oct. 14 online edition of the Journal of Happiness Studies, suggests that having children has little or no effect on boosting happiness among couples who aren't hitched:

* The findings contradict previous research that suggested that having more offspring doesn't lead to greater happiness and might even make people less satisfied with their lives.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, parenting

posted by Eve at 11:46 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Most of us know people who are in love, plan to marry and currently live together. It’s sort of the new premarital counseling program. I visited a church out West that had a “pre-marriage” ceremony for a couple living together. No license. No wedding dress. Just a prayer of blessing to hold them over until the couple walked down the aisle—a kind of marital “appetizer,” I guess. I asked the pastor why they did it. He said, “The couple believes they are married in the eyes of the Lord, and we just wanted them to feel affirmation in our community.”

Labels: cohabitation, committed relationships, culture, Marriage, premarital sex, religion

posted by Eve at 4:45 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Law Commission wants to end rules dating back more than 80 years and give most partners who do not marry the same rights as bereaved spouses.

The body admitted the proposal will be "controversial" but insisted current laws "reflect some of the social conditions and attitudes of a different era" and need to be in line with "modern families".

But the plans will reignite concerns that the significance of traditional families is being weakened.

Under the current law, cohabitees have no automatic right to inherit their partner's assets if they die without leaving a will, despite many believing they do.

Instead the estate goes to the children of the deceased or other family members if there are no children.

An unmarried partner would have to go to court to claim from the estate which causes "great financial and emotional cost", the Commission said.

In comparison, a married spouse or civil partner automatically inherits everything or receives a large portion of very high value estates.

In a major review of intestate rules, which govern what happens if someone dies without a will, the Commission proposes bringing some unmarried couples on a par with married ones.

The consultation suggests those who lived together for at least five years should have equal rights to those of a spouse while those who were together for between two and five years should receive half of what a spouse would. ...

Professor Elizabeth Cooke, the Commissioner who led the review, said: "When a family member dies, the process of grieving and of adjustment to change can be made far worse by uncertainty and anxiety about money for belongings.

"It is vital that the law remains relevant and up to date, reflecting the reality of modern society and the reasonable expectations of those who have been bereaved."

Labels: cohabitation, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 4:44 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Tories are to go ahead with their plans to recognise marriage in the tax system, the shadow minister for families said today.

Maria Miller said the Conservative party "unashamedly supports families and unashamedly supports marriage", rallying around the tax pledge, a policy that has come in for criticism from liberal members of the Tory party and opposition parties but remains one of David Cameron's highest profile promises.

The Conservative leader is known to regard the policy highly but senior Tories and pressure groups are uncertain that the best way of supporting families is necessarily through recognising marriage because unmarried couples would also receive the tax break under Conservative proposals.

Speaking at the Tory conference in Manchester, Miller indicated no weakening of resolve. This afternoon she said: "It is not because we want to go back to any 1950s ideals of family life. It's because it's empirically proven that marriage provides a stable framework for our lives. With the evidence right in front of us, it's madness not to support marriage. That's why we're committed to introducing the recognition of marriage in the tax and benefit system.

"In turbulent times, it's our family who we turn to. The family, not the state, is our best support system."

Labels: cohabitation, family policy, government interest in marriage, Marriage, tax policy, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 10:16 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Hell doesn’t freeze over, the land is not engulfed in floods or flaming brimstone, and the participants are not struck dead by lightening. Neither do married straight people rush to divorce court to end their association with the now-sullied institution or reform their behavior to prove that they really are better than gay people. Instead, at least in the case of the Netherlands which has allowed gay marriage since 2001, gay people get married for much the same reasons as straight people while the marital behavior of straight people scarcely changes at all.

This is the conclusion of When Gay People Get Married, a refreshingly even-tempered and well-researched book by M.V. Lee Badgett, a Professor of Economics and director of the Center for Public Policy & Administration at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and research director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law. ...

So gay marriage seems to be good for gay people: how does it affect straight people? According to the conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz, it hastens moral decline by separating the act of procreation from the act of marriage. He points to decreasing marriage rates in the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, the increase in unmarried heterosexual couples, and increasing numbers of children born outside of wedlock as evidence that straight people take legal recognition of gay marriage as a sign that parenthood and marriage need no longer be connected.

But Badgett refutes these conclusions by looking at marriage rates in six countries, five of which have a long history of granting rights to same sex couples: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands, and the United States. All six have seen a decline in marriage rates since the 1970s, but several of the countries which allow gay marriage have seen an increase since the ‘90s (while the US has not). She doesn’t attribute the increase to the influence of gay marriage (the trend started earlier) but points out that the historical data offers no support for Kurtz’s opinions. Similarly, divorce rates and nonmarital birth rates showed little change after the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Labels: cohabitation, Europe, gay marriage, M.V. Lee Badgett, Marriage, Netherlands, out-of-wedlock births, Stanley Kurtz

posted by Eve at 4:19 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: Andrew Cherlin, children, cohabitation, divorce, Marriage

posted by Eve at 1:59 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

It seems, to many, like the sensible thing to do: Move in with your boyfriend or girlfriend, spend more time together, save money by splitting the rent and see if you can share a bathroom every morning without wanting to kill each other.

But if you were Scott Stanley's kid, he'd beg you not to do it.

Stanley, a University of Denver psychologist, has spent the past 15 years trying to figure out why premarital cohabitation is associated with lower levels of satisfaction in marriage and a greater potential for divorce.

At a conference last month, Stanley and his colleagues presented the latest findings of a five-year study being sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He estimates that between 60 and 70 percent of couples today will live together before marriage, and that for two-thirds of them, cohabitation is something that they slid into or "just sort of happened."

And a study Stanley co-authored in February found that of the 1,050 married people surveyed, almost 19 percent of those who lived together before getting engaged had at some point suggested divorce, compared with 10 percent for those who waited until marriage to live together.

Those findings mimic the reports from the mid-1990s that first peaked Stanley's interest, showing that men who cohabitated before marriage were, on average, less dedicated to their relationships than those who didn't.

"It was one of those kind of findings that I wouldn't have suspected," Stanley, 53, recalls. But he immediately had a theory: "The basic idea was, 'Okay, there's a group of males there that married someone they wouldn't have married if they hadn't moved in with them.' "

Labels: cohabitation, divorce, Marriage

posted by Eve at 3:35 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

When the American Law Institute published its long-awaited proposals for sweeping changes in divorce law in 2002, they were met with great fanfare. One academic predicted the proposals would be a “resounding success,” while the New York Times said they would likely have a “major impact” on the development of the law.

But a recent empirical study of the recommendations indicates that the group’s proposals—formally known as the Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution—have been a resounding flop.

To date, only West Virginia has enacted legislation referencing any part of the ALI’s proposals, according to the study, American Law Insti­tute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution, Eight Years After Adoption: Guiding Principles or Obligatory Foot­note? The study was published in the ABA’s Family Law Quarterly, fall 2008 edition.

West Virginia adopted principles relating to child custody in 2003; oth­er provisions deal with alimony, the division of property and the rights of unmarried cohabitating couples, gay and straight.

The ALI proposals have fared only slightly better in the courts. Accord­ing to the study, only 100 cases have cited the ALI’s principles since work on the group’s proposals began in 1990; that’s fewer than half the number of cases citing other treatises on tort law and remedies that were pub­lished around the same time. And the courts in those cases rejected the ALI’s proposals more often than they accepted them, by a ratio of more than 1½-to-1.

Labels: beyond marriage, cohabitation, divorce, family structure

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:36 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...For example, from the point of view of Church, a proper family must have a marriage in it – as I have just said, we have had this repeated over and over. As I have said elsewhere, I am more interested these days in the concept of the sacrament of relationships, rather than merely marriage, but this is certainly a bridge too far for our own Church. So, we do get a clear idea from Church, even if we don’t subscribe to it, of what family is, or isn’t!

The State is much more open to other forms and is perhaps driven by other considerations, not least the views of the electorate. But it is ironic that the State appears to be much more pastoral and compassionate in its acceptance of what family is. The fact that there are all kinds of benefits available for different family forms, and legal imperatives to support families suggests that the State is even more concerned for families than Church. ...

The cohabitation of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s bears no resemblance, other than in purely external form, to the current cohabitation of hetersexuals. Where wedding ring and suburban housing once were consequences of marriage, the modern day wedding ring is a mortgage, children, and a personal and private decision to be together. Duncan Dormor writes well on this phenomenon in his book, Just Cohabiting, where he suggests that modern cohabitation is akin to Mediaeval betrothal.

Add to this the increasing openness, and tolerance, of same-sex unions and the picture of today’s family society starts to come into focus. The Civil Partnerships legislation in this country was somewhat ground-breaking in giving gays and lesbians similar legal rights to heterosexual partnership. The real consequence of this is the legal acceptance, and partial social acceptance, of this family form.

We know, nevertheless, that there are many who are outrightly opposed to same-sex unions having any legal status. Our own Church is particularly active in some areas on this front, perhaps missing the point that when we look at intimate relationships, we should be less concerned, as Church, with the purely civil, and focus on sacrament that is more about the expression of the presence of God mediated through commitment, consent and covenant. Where this exists in married couples, in cohabiting heterosexual couples and same-sex couples, there is sacrament, I believe.

Labels: Catholic Church, civil unions, cohabitation, gay marriage, marriage counseling, religion, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 7:23 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...This column was to be entitled, “Why Priests Hate Weddings,” but I thought that might be a bit too strong. Nevertheless, ask any priest about his work and he will quickly share with you the challenge of dealing with the Sacrament of Matrimony today.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that the real practice of weddings and marriage today is far different than the ideal of Holy Matrimony as instituted by Christ and taught by the Church.

It begins with the fact that so many couples (perhaps 40%) are living together before they are married. This cohabitation, along with the sexual activity that presumably accompanies it, reveals a lack of understanding about the sanctity of the marriage covenant. ...

Wedding liturgies themselves become parties rather than prayer, making it nearly impossible to maintain any sense of decorum, any sense of the sacred. Guests arrive late, the bride goes into hiding, the groomsmen have been sitting in the church parking lot drinking; flower girls and ring bearers are very cute but too young to walk up the aisle without crying; the music is chosen from the “top forty list” and the photographer scrambles over the pews to direct the action rather than record it.

It’s exceedingly difficult for the priest to stand in the pulpit with any degree of conviction; to speak about the permanence of marriage when guests are involved in their second or third marriage; about fidelity when spouses have been or will be unfaithful; about sanctity when the newlyweds process out of church never to be seen again; about children when so many brides and grooms carry a contraceptive mentality into their marriage.

Labels: Catholic Church, cohabitation, contraception, Marriage, religion, remarriage, weddings vs. marriage

posted by Eve at 8:12 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Living happily ever after needn't only be for fairy tales. Australian researchers have identified what it takes to keep a couple together, and it's a lot more than just being in love.

A couple's age, previous relationships and even whether they smoke or not are factors that influence whether their marriage is going to last, according to a study by researchers from the Australian National University.

The study, entitled "What's Love Got to Do With It", tracked nearly 2,500 couples -- married or living together -- from 2001 to 2007 to identify factors associated with those who remained together compared with those who divorced or separated.

It found that a husband who is nine or more years older than his wife is twice as likely to get divorced, as are husbands who get married before they turn 25.

Children also influence the longevity of a marriage or relationship, with one-fifth of couples who have kids before marriage -- either from a previous relationship or in the same relationship -- having separated compared to just nine percent of couples without children born before marriage.

Women who want children much more than their partners are also more likely to get a divorce.

A couple's parents also have a role to play in their own relationship, with the study showing some 16 percent of men and women whose parents ever separated or divorced experienced marital separation themselves compared to 10 percent for those whose parents did not separate.

more

Labels: Australia, cohabitation, divorce, Marriage

posted by Imapp Staff at 7:52 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Couples would be required by law to "reflect" on their marriage and explore the possibility of reconciliation, under plans put forward by Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice.

In a key report being studied by David Cameron, the group also proposes more rights for people to keep the assets they owned before they were married if they later got divorced.

New rights for cohabiting couples, proposed by the equality minister Harriet Harman would be scrapped.

Divorce in England and Wales is currently granted on the basis of the irretrievable breakdown of marriage, on one of five so-called “grounds” – adultery; unreasonable behaviour; desertion; two years’ separation with consent; or five years’ separation without consent.

The new proposals are for a three-month delay before divorce proceedings could begin.

The proposals form part of a major new report called Every Family Matters which aims to bolster family life with new legal measures. ...

A system of state-sponsored relationship counselling is proposed which is based on a scheme in Australia where struggling couples attend Family Relationship Centres.

The proposed British version would be called "family relationship hubs" and couples would be required to attend them by law if they wanted to divorce.

In addition, all couples preparing to marry would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the hubs, although the report stops short of making this compulsory.

It also calls for an overhaul of the law on how assets are divided when couples divorce to better reflect "marital sacrifices".

Labels: cohabitation, divorce, divorce reform, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 5:21 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Homosexuals can "lay equal claim to their married heterosexual counterparts when bringing up children in stable relationships" the head of the highly regarded British Catholic marriage counselling service, Marriage Care, will tell a gathering of homosexualist activists this weekend.

Marriage Care is registered as a Catholic charity whose president is the sitting Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, who is represented on the board by Fr. Michael Cooley. The organization, formed after the Second World War, calls itself "a Christian organisation, developed from within the Catholic community." The group operates from 80 locations and 53 relationship counselling centres in England and Wales.

Terry Prendergast, Chief Executive of Marriage Care, is to be keynote speaker at the annual conference of the homosexualist organisation Quest, a group that is trying to convince the Catholic Church to abandon its "policies" on sexuality and the nature of marriage. Prendergast will call upon the Catholic Church to "rethink" the nature of the family this weekend.

"Statistically, children do best in a family where the adult relationship is steady, stable and loving," Prendergast will tell the group in his prepared remarks. "Note that I stress adult, not married, since there is no evidence that suggests that children do best with heterosexual couples," he will add.

In a press release, Quest said it was looking forward to the appearance of Prendergast at its annual conference this coming weekend, the theme of which is "We Are Family: New Thinking for the Twenty First Century." Quest describes Prendergast's upcoming talk as focusing on the "romantic image" built up by the Church of a "golden age of the nuclear family" which excludes those who "do not fit." These, the group says, include single parent families, "and also co-habiting and same-sex families." ...

Terry Prendergast told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that a significant source of the group's funding and other support comes from Catholic dioceses, one of which pays the rent for offices, and from individual parishes across the country. But, he said, the group's purpose is not necessarily to uphold the Catholic teaching on marriage and family.

Labels: Catholic Church, cohabitation, gay marriage, Marriage, marriage counseling, religion, single parenting, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 11:15 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Most unmarried couples who live together aren't trying to test their relationship. They just want to spend more time together.

That finding, from a new national study of dating and cohabitation, seemingly contradicts the popular wisdom of cohabitation as a trial marriage. It's among early results from the study, scheduled to continue for years, and it gives researchers new insight into the burgeoning number of couples who cohabit.

Cohabitation has increased so rapidly that the data about it haven't kept pace with the growing numbers, researchers say. The latest U.S. Census for 2008 reported 13.6 million unmarried, heterosexual couples living together. Researchers say 50% to 60% of couples who marry today lived together first; some note that 70% of young adults will cohabit. Most couples who live together either marry or break up within two years. ...

Other research by Stanley and Rhoades, along with the center's co-director, Howard Markman, published this year reinforces previous findings about cohabitation and is similar to the new Denver study. A survey of 1,050 people who were married less than 10 years published in the Journal of Family Psychology suggests cohabiting before engagement is associated with lower marital satisfaction. A study of 120 cohabiting couples in the Journal of Family Issues also found unmarried partners cohabit to spend more time together, not to test the relationship.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage

posted by Eve at 10:54 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

With Father’s Day almost upon us, expect a host of media stories on men and
family life. Some will do a good job of capturing the changes and continuities
associated with fatherhood in contemporary America. But other reporters and
writers will generalize from their own unrepresentative networks of friends and
family members, try to baptize the latest family trend, or assume that our
society is heading ceaselessly in a progressive direction. So be on the lookout
this week for stories, op-eds, and essays that include these five myths on
contemporary fatherhood and family life.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, divorce, Fathers, out-of-wedlock births, parenting, W. Bradford Wilcox

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:40 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, National Marriage Project

posted by Eve at 8:56 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Earlier this month, Bristol Palin turned herself into a poster child for the nation's continuing effort to prevent teenage pregnancies. She made the rounds on the morning TV show circuit and spoke at town hall meetings to drive home the point that other teens shouldn't make the same mistake she did. Ms. Palin's campaign could not have come at a better time. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. -- after witnessing a 14-year decline in teenage childbearing from 1991 to 2005 -- saw the number rise from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, about 450,000 adolescents gave birth.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births, W. Bradford Wilcox

posted by Eve at 4:16 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The percentage of births to unmarried mothers is increasing worldwide, according to a new federal report that shows a universal upward trend over the last 25 years.

Among 14 countries analyzed in the report by the National Center for Health Statistics, the percentage of all live unmarried births in the USA -- 40% in 2007 -- ranks somewhere in the middle. That's up from 18% in 1980. The sharpest rise was from 2002 to 2007, the report found.

Countries with a higher proportion of births to unmarried mothers include Iceland, Sweden, Norway, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom; countries with a lower percentage than the USA include Ireland, Germany, Canada, Spain, Italy and Japan.

In 2007, the Netherlands had the same percentage as the USA, but it has increased ten-fold there from 4% in 1980.

Demographer Patrick Heuveline of the University of California-Los Angeles compared non-marital fertility in many of the same countries about a decade ago. He found that U.S. mothers are more likely to be single parents because the non-married couple relationship doesn't tend to last very long, something he says continues to be true, he says.

"There might be little bit more cohabitation now, but it's probably true that the United States remains unique and ahead of other countries for births to single mothers not in a cohabiting partnership," he says.

Labels: cohabitation, demographics, Europe, out-of-wedlock births

posted by Eve at 9:21 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Q: What led you to write THE MARRIAGE-GO-ROUND?

A: I had the sense that American marriage and family life differed fundamentally from the other Western countries—Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand—in a way no one was writing about. Some observers have focused on changes in marriage, others on divorce, and others on non-marital births. But I realized that you have to look at the whole picture—all of these aspects together—to appreciate what was happening. We have more marriages and remarriages, more divorces, and more short-term cohabiting (living together) relationships than the other countries. Put them together and you have more turnover, more movement in and out of relationships than anywhere else. As a result, Americans have more spouses and live-in partners over the course of their lives than do people in any other Western country. We step on and off the carousel of marriages and partnerships faster than anywhere else.


Q: You were already well versed in the subject of marriage in America, as you have been studying families and public policy for much of your career. Did any of your discoveries surprise you as you wrote THE MARRIAGE-GO-ROUND?

A: I knew that our divorce rate was higher than in other countries, but I didn’t realize how much higher than even in supposedly vanguard countries such as Sweden. One statistic that stunned me: take two children, one growing up with married parents in the United States, and one growing up with unmarried parents in Sweden—which child has the higher likelihood of seeing his parents’ relationship break up? Answer: the American kid, because children living with married parents in the United States have a higher probability of experiencing a break-up than do children living with unmarried parents in Sweden. That’s how high our break-up rates are.


Q: One of the main trends THE MARRIAGE-GO-ROUND discusses is that Americans have more long-term partners than the rest of the western world. Why do you think this is?

A: I think the reason is the nature of American culture, which is unlike the culture of any other country when it comes to marriage and personal life. Americans believe in two contradictory ideals. The first is the importance of marriage: we are more marriage-oriented than most other Western countries. The second is the importance of living a personally fulfilling life that allows us to grow and develop as individuals—call it individualism. Now, you can find other countries that place a high value on marriage, such as Italy where most children are born to married couples and there are fewer cohabiting relationships. And you can find countries that place a high value on individualism, such as Sweden. But only in the United States do you find both. So we marry in large numbers—we have a higher marriage rate than most countries. But we evaluate our marriages according to how personally fulfilling we find them. And if we find them lacking, we are more likely to end them. Then, because it’s so important to be partnered, we move in with someone else, and the cycle starts all over again.

Also, we start and end cohabiting relationships at an even higher rate. If you are living with someone outside of marriage, and you are personally unhappy, you are supposed to end the relationship. Our cohabiting relationships are shorter than in any other country. It’s not as though some Americans value marriage and others value individualism. Rather, we carry both ideals in our heads and switch between them without even realizing it. These ideals have been part of American culture since the colonial era. The early New England settlers believed that marriage was the center of civil society; but they also believed in individual initiative and, unlike the Church of England or the Catholic Church, they allowed divorce. ...

Q: Why is same-sex marriage so debated in the United States? How does this compare to other countries?

A: Same-sex marriage has been more of a battleground in the United States than in most other countries because marriage is more important to Americans than to people in other countries. Same-sex marriage is sometimes portrayed as a legal rights issue—the right to file taxes together, visit partners in the hospital, etc. Those rights are important, but that’s not the main issue. If the fight were only about legal rights, then civil unions would be sufficient. They are not sufficient to gay and lesbian activists in the United States because of the great prestige of marriage. The real issue is symbolic: who gets to wear the marriage badge. In some European countries, gay and lesbian activists are asking instead: why, at this late date, should we buy into the oppressive, archaic institution of marriage? But in the United States many advocates say that only a marriage ring guarantees first-class citizenship. And they are right, because marriage matters more here than elsewhere.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, divorce, gay marriage, Marriage

posted by Eve at 10:49 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Last week, Vermont became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage, setting off yet another round of celebration and hand-wringing in different quarters of American life. The debate over same-sex marriage -- showing so much intensity on both sides -- is but one sign that Americans take marriage very seriously indeed. From television specials featuring over-the-top Bridezilla weddings to the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative, which spends $150 million annually on marriage-related programs, no other Western nation devotes as much cultural energy, public policy or religious attention to matrimony as the U.S. And with approximately 90% of Americans marrying over the course of their lifetimes, the U.S. has the highest marriage rate of any Western country.

But there is a darker side to this exceptionalism, as Andrew J. Cherlin notes in "The Marriage-Go-Round," his incisive portrait of marriage in America. Virtually no other nation in the West compares with the U.S. when it comes to divorce, short-term co-habitation and single parenthood. As Mr. Cherlin documents, Americans marry and co-habit at younger ages, divorce more quickly and enter into second marriages or co-habiting unions faster than their counterparts elsewhere. In other words, Americans "step on and off the carousel of intimate relationships." ...

How did the U.S. reach this state of affairs -- in which marriage is almost universally desired and yet more fragile than ever before, with almost half of all first marriages ending in divorce court and a series of hybrid family forms adding confusion and instability to children's lives? Mr. Cherlin points to competing "models" or ideas of marriage. On the one hand, he notes, most Americans believe that marriage is the best social institution for bearing and rearing children and that marriage should be grounded in a permanent, faithful and loving relationship. On the other hand, Americans celebrate individualism more than people in other Western societies and so believe that they are entitled to make choices that maximize their personal happiness. When a marriage becomes unsatisfying, difficult or burdensome, according to this model, it can be dissolved -- it even should be dissolved.

Such contradictory impulses push the vast majority of Americans into marriage and then push a large minority out again when their dreams of marital bliss go unrealized. It does not help that Americans in recent years have come to see marriage as a symbol more than a covenant -- as a kind of "capstone" signaling that they have arrived at a certain position in the world, with a good job, a good résumé and now, it is hoped, a soulmate who will make them happy. Meanwhile, poor and working-class adults -- especially men -- lack the cushioning financial assets of their privileged counterparts, so they are even less likely to get married or stay married.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, divorce, Marriage, poverty

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:56 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The leader of the movement to ban same-sex marriage in Florida now wants to make it harder and more expensive for heterosexual couples to marry — and divorce.

Just as he says gay unions would undercut the institution of marriage, John Stemberger thinks the casual way people get married and the ease by which they can divorce threatens the foundation of society. His goal is to change that.

"Harder to get in and harder to get out," said Stemberger, head of the Orlando-based Florida Family Policy Council.

Stemberger's "Strong Marriages Campaign" is promoting a Premarital Preparation bill before the Florida Legislature that would add $100 to the state's marriage-license fee. Those who attend eight hours of premarital counseling would get their money back.

Money not returned to couples would go into a Marriage Education Trust Fund, which would provide grants to premarital counseling groups.

The Florida Senate's committee on Children, Families and Elder Affairs is scheduled to have a hearing today on the creation of the trust fund. ...

Critics contend Stemberger is using the state's budget crunch to push a conservative Christian religious ideology disguised as public policy. Most children living in poverty are not the products of divorce but of unwed mothers, said Judith Stacey, a sociology professor at New York University.

"There is no way that is going to make a dent in unwed childbirths," said Stacey, who has studied the stronger-marriage movement. "This is not going to save the state a dime."

The marriage trust fund, which would be administered by the Department of Children and Families, would funnel money into faith-based organizations that share Stemberger's ideology, Stacey said.

Labels: cohabitation, divorce, Judith Stacey, marriage counseling, marriage promotion, poverty

posted by Eve at 3:05 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Incidentally, "State of Our Unions" (PDF) is an invaluable annual publication, which deserves more attention. If you look through the charts linked above, you'll find a mixed picture where the health of marriage is concerned. One trend, however, stands out as really dramatic since 2000, and that's the huge rise in heterosexual cohabitation.

As Figure 13 shows, the number of unmarried cohabiting opposite-sex couples living with one or more children has increased 60 percent since 2000 (!). Also up, though only mildly, is the percentage of high-school seniors saying that having a child without being married is "experimenting with a worthwhile lifestyle or not affecting anyone else" (Figure 17).

The two best ways I can think of to encourage cohabitation's emergence as the cultural equal of marriage are to (1) tarnish marriage as discriminatory in the minds of the young, which is what excluding gay couples from marriage is doing, and (2) turn same-sex couples who have kids into walking advertisements for out-of-wedlock parenthood, which is what excluding gay parents from marriage is doing.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, gay marriage, Marriage

posted by Eve at 6:00 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT