Thinking Critically About Cohabitation

Introduction: Is Unmarried Cohabitation Bad?

I've been carefully mulling over just about everything I've accepted about sociology.

Let's look at shacking up (unmarried cohabitation).

Don't misunderstand. I'm against shacking up. But I'm also against misleading people.

Dr. Laura (and many socially conservative commentators) will tell callers that shacking up is linked to negative indicators, such as:

• It makes it less likely you will get married
• It makes is less likely you will stay married
• Increased infidelity
• More abuse
  

When Dr. Laura (or any other commentator) barrages someone with all of this, most recipients aren't prepared for it and don't have the wherewithal or the time to counter the claims. Indeed, as Dr. Laura says, she refuses to argue or debate, which seems strange if she's confident that she's right. She hits her callers with this and that's that.


How Do We Know If It is Good or Bad?

Let's assume Dr. Laura is citing accepted, reviewed data that is still current (although, I doubt she's using current data).
 
Some important things to remember when we are talking about this (and for many things in life):

"Compared to what?" Remember that we can't compare someone to themselves. Any given couple either shacks up or not. We don't REALLY know what their life would be like if they had done the other. Also, what's the alternative to shacking up? That they continue to date without cohabitation for the same length of time, or that they marry at the time they would otherwise have shacked up?

"Correlation is not causation." Just because two things appear to correlate doesn't mean one causes the other. One might cause the other, or the reverse, or maybe they were both caused by something else, or maybe they just happen to be that way without any causal link at all. Lemonade consumption correlates to drownings. Do you really think lemonade caused people to drown, or that drowning causes people to drink lemonade? Or is it that people are more likely to consume more lemonade in the summer AND they are more likely to swim in the summer or be around liquid water, and thus more likely to drown?

"At what cost?" Everything is a trade-off. For some, shacking up is going to have more positives than negatives.

"Who is included?" or "How was this determined?" Statistics on shacking up usually lump ALL unmarried romantic or sexual cohabitants together. Don't you think there might be a difference between a couple that "fell into" shacking up and a couple that PLANNED and thoroughly DISCUSSED their intentions, expectations, goals, responsibilities, etc. before moving it together? Might there be a slight difference between two 19 year-olds who are shacked up in her parent's basement because he stopped going back to his parent's place (especially if they have no intention of marrying), and two professional 30 year-olds who are established as independent adults who've lived on their own for years and have their education behind them and their careers established (especially if they have a solid plan for when and where they will marry)?

Let's look at the supposedly negative indicators.

"Shacking up means more abuse." What this really means is that, comparing married people to people shacking up, higher percentages of abuse are reported for the group that is shacking up. Are we to conclude that someone who'd be abusive if they were shacking up won't be abusive if they are married instead? Or might it be that people in a relationship are less likely to marry if one or both of them is abusive? Or even that spouses are abused just as much, but are less likely to report it because they are legally and financially tied to their spouse? It certainly doesn't mean that people who are with an abuser should marry them in hopes that it will reduce or end the abuse. What people like Dr. Laura will say is that women should look for the kind of man who'll marry them rather than shacking up, because such a man is less likely to be abusive. But many married men who never shacked up have abused their wives. You know what reduces domestic violence much more significantly? LIVING ALONE. When someone tells someone to get married rather than living alone, they are telling them to put themselves at risk for domestic violence.

"Shacking up means more infidelity." I suspect this is saying that if a couple is living together unmarried, that affairs tend to happen more than in married relationships. Again, we have no way of knowing if any given person would be less likely to cheat if they were married. But Dr. Laura says shacking up has no rules; without rules, there's no such thing as cheating in the first place. And again, why would someone who thinks of what their lover has done as cheating marry them? So, they are together as shack ups rather than spouses, and the data is tacked on to the "shacking up" percentages. Now, maybe someone who has shacked up is statistically more likely to cheat in their marriage. Again, one can reduce the risk of being cheated on at all by staying free.

"Shacking up makes it less likely you'll stay married." This is based on data saying that people who shack up before they marry have a higher divorce rate than people who don't shack up before they marry. Let's think about this. Who DOESN'T shack up before they marry? Very, very religious people. Who is less likely do divorce? Very, very religious people. So, what's happening is that there are very, very religious people who don't live together before they marry, discover it's a terrible life, or at least that they are incompatible, but stay miserably married. Is that preferable? And again, the best way to avoid divorce is to never marry.

"Shacking up makes it less likely you will get married." Sounds like an ENDORSEMENT to me! But seriously, Dr. Laura uses this as a warning to women who think that shacking up is preparing their relationship for marriage. But how was this statistic determined? Who does it include? What is the comparison? If I was a betting man, I'd wager that such a statistic includes couples who were never intending to marry and couples who were never going to marry anyway. I'm certain it doesn't compare only established couples who both want to marry, and want to marry each other, and then either they don't shack up (group A) or they do shack up (group B) and then we see that after how much amount of time (???), more couples in group A married than group B. Surely, some people who shack up do so instead of getting married at that time because they don't have enough certainty that they want to live with this person the rest of their life. Whatever is the case, it is important how this statistic is determined, and if a couple was planning to marry, and they shacked up, and figured out they weren't a match, isn't is better they didn't marry? If a man wants to live together, and the woman says "Not without marriage!" and he goes ahead and marries her, what are the odds they were going to marry anyway, and would have even if they shacked up? How many men out there are saying, "Well, I wasn't going to marry her, but she said she wouldn't live with me unless I did, so I married her first?" If they exist, how many of those are good marriages???

Statistics are about a population, not individuals. There are people who had sex on the first date, started living together immediately, and have been married for decades. I know people like that. There are also people who waited until they married to live together (and some, before they had sex) and they are divorced or miserably married. I know people like that, too.


But What About Other Considerations?

Another approach Dr. Laura tries is by tugging at the heart (or ego) by talking about "carrying over the threshold." That was a tradition of when the newlyweds enter their home for the first time, just married, the husband carried the wife through the doorway as a symbol of starting their new life together (which was what the wedding itself was supposed to be, right?). This has kind of gone out of fashion, no doubt in part due to American obesity, but the premise of Dr. Laura's statement is that doing that won't be the same if they were already living together, and maybe she's right. But how many people are willing to trade those five seconds (and the memories thereof) for months, or years, of living together?

I get the sense that one of the problems "tradcons" or others against shacking up have is that it makes it harder to pretend to the world that you aren't fornicating. If they aren't actually living together, we can all pretend that they aren't having sex "outside of wedlock", even though almost all of them are and we all know it. (It gets obvious when pregnancies result.) Even Dr. Laura makes the assumption that her married callers had sex before they married and that her unmarried callers who are in relationships or dating are having sex, unless they specifically say otherwise. So, for this at least, it's symbolism over substance. It's about barely-plausible deniability.

For people like Dr. Laura, another big problem is that the man is "getting sex and domestic services for nothing." They believe men are supposed to pay for sex; ideally, over half of his income, and if the relationship ends, he's supposed to KEEP paying her for the sex he had with her in the past. Never mind that in many of these situations, the man is paying at least some of her bills and he's providing protection and his domestic services. If you're like me, you ask, "Aren't they both getting sex from each other?" Ah, but you see, some people see a woman's time and body as more valuable than a man's and/or that men want sex more than women. Either there is equality or there isn't. Whichever framework you choose, at least be consistent. But they are both shacking up with each other. He didn't abduct her, and the fact is, most women DO get something out of shacking up, and most DO enjoy sex somewhat, and sharing a bed, even if they don't get a chance or have their thoughts organized enough to say that on a talk radio program. Notice how Dr. Laura describes it. The "unpaid whore" as she says (despite there often being payments) is giving him her body and doing his laundry "for nothing". Well, he's giving her HIS body, too, and paying for her bills and protecting her. "Well, Dr. Laura doesn't address that because she's talking to the woman." Nope. When the man calls, Dr. Laura says the same thing: that he's taking advantage of her. I can't recall her ever telling a man that he's degrading himself or taking himself off a pedestal or that a nice woman won't want to marry him because he's shacked up. She says that to women all of the time. It's about the woman. Dr. Laura might ask, "Would you want some guy doing this to your daughter?" (That question is a trap, by the way. If you say you respect your daughter's autonomy you'll be called "sick" or "not a real man" or  "limp d---" - but it won't be explained why you are wrong to take such a stance.)

My definition of shacking up is probably different than Dr. Laura's. If a couple considers themselves married and present themselves as married, especially if they've had a ceremony, they're married. I now reject that they need a terrible state contract in order to be considered married. They aren't shacking up, in my view, if they are planning for this to be permanent or at least for the long haul. For Dr. Laura, people need to be LEGALLY married and have joint financial accounts. (For anyone who cares, the Bible doesn't describe anything different from my definition of married. Nothing in the Bible says you must get a state license and combine finances. Nothing in the Bible lists steps one must take to be officially married.)


Why You Shouldn't Shack Up

I'll wrap up by pointing out what the problems with shacking up REALLY are and why most men should avoid shacking up.

1. First and foremost, shacking up has many of the the same problems for men as marrying. Dr. Laura makes it sound like it's a grand old time for men, but that's usually not the case; it's just not AS bad as legally marrying. Relationships are usually best for men when they are new, fresh, and exciting; when a woman is auditioning, trying to get her hooks into him. When a woman feels like she has the man hooked in, which can happen with shacking up, things go downhill.

2. Shacking up makes it harder to get out of the relationship even if you know you should. This IS one way shacking up can contribute to divorce: Couples shacking up get married, even when they shouldn't, because they think it is the "next step" in their relationship and they don't want to admit their relationship should be over. So, they marry, then realize the ceremony and the awful state contract didn't make their relationship good enough to keep it.

3. If you want to marry (and most guys shouldn't legally marry!), the "wrong kind" of shacking up can establish patterns that hinder a lasting, happy, healthy marriage. If your shacking up is more along the lines of "falling into it" or "this is convenient, but I'm not thinking that I know this is likely for the long haul" then either or both of you might establish patterns as unmarried cohabitants that carry over into a marriage, to the detriment of that marriage. This can be avoided by not living together unless you are intending for this to be "permanent" and cooperative and you two have had honest conversations about plans, goals, rules, needs, expectations, priorities, and all of that stuff. If you're shacking up with someone you don't want to be with for the long haul, it can make it harder for you to find someone you DO want to be with for the long haul.

TL;dr: Shacking up is usually a terrible idea. It is only preferable to legally marrying, if those are your  realistic options, for whatever reason. Don't let yourself get into that position!

Compare what I've written here to this entry from years ago.