The New York Times is running an article based on a survey designed to estimate the number of married households as a percentage of the population. For the first time the data they have shows married households making up less than a majority of American households.
The interesting thing in the piece was the typical blah, blah, blah about the marriage "test drive" known as cohabitation. The end of the article reads:
“Even cohabiting young adults tell us that they are doing so because it would be unwise to marry without first living together in a society marked by high levels of divorce,” Ms. Smock said.
A number of couples interviewed agreed that cohabiting was akin to taking a test drive and, given the scarcity of affordable apartments and homes, also a matter of convenience. Some said that pregnancy was the only thing that would prompt them to make a legal commitment soon. Others said they never intended to marry. A few of those couples said they were inspired by solidarity with gay and lesbian couples who cannot legally marry in most states.
Jennifer Lynch, a 28-year-old stage manager in New York, said she had lived on the Lower East Side with her boyfriend, who is 37 and divorced, for most of the five years they have been a couple.
“Cohabitating is our choice, and we have no intention to be married,” Ms. Lynch said. “There is little difference between what we do and what married people do. We love each other, exist together, all of our decisions are based upon each other. Everyone we care about knows this.”
If anything, she added, “not having the false security of wedding rings makes us work even a little harder.”
When this is stacked up next to the reality that cohabiting couples seem to separate at a higher rate than those who did not shack up, you can see a sad deception being perpetuated today (See Rutger's Univ Study on Marriage and Cohabitation). Unfortunately the people ravaged by such popular "try before you buy" mythologies are the women who give it all up to some knucklehead guy without any commitment. And when the boy will not grow up, commit, be a good dad...she is puzzled. She should know better and find a real man.