Types of Co-Habitation (Essay Sample)

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Co-habitation
Types of Co-habitation
Co-habitation generally refers to the scenario in which a heterosexual couple choose to live together in a romantic relationship while choosing to remain unmarried. According to Rouse (11), there are generally four types of cohabitation and these include convenient cohabitation, trial marriage, temporary alternative to marriage and permanent alternative to marriage.
A permanent alternative to marriage type of cohabitation occurs among people to whom there is no prospect of marrying. It’s common for individuals who are not legally permitted to marry, and this may include gay couples or two consenting individuals living together in an incestuous relationship. Because the option to marry is not possible in this kind of relationship, couples resort to and view this form of long-term cohabitation as a necessary union in the absence of a legally binding marriage.
Trial marriage, also known as premarital cohabitation is the situation whereby two consenting adults with a desire of getting married in future decide to undertake a trial marriage period. It more often involves couples who are of the opinion that premarital cohabitation accords them the chance to gauge whether marriage is their thing or not. They basically want to assess whether the marriage lifestyle can work for them or not.
Convenient cohabitation is a scenario whereby two consenting adults agree to live together as an alternative to living separate lives. It’s normally a coming together for convenience and is more prevalent among poorer communities. The two consenting adults will agree to live together as a way of sharing the daily expenses of living. In this kind of cohabitation, romantic feelings develop as a result of the two living together and, therefore, having close contact with each other. The intention of beginning a romantic relationship is normally not the driving factor in this type of cohabitation.
A temporary alternative to marriage is the kind of cohabitation whereby two consenting adults agree to live together as a married couple without undergoing any legal ceremony to bind them together. They hence develop the expectations and responsibilities unique to their particular relationship as they continue living together. It’s a common phenomenon among people who had previously been married but for one reason or another the marriage ended in a painful way. Hence, they desire companionship but don’t want to undergo the pain of marriage.
Common Trends as Regards Co-habitation
Young people are more likely to cohabit as compared to older people, and this has tended to support the argument by its proponents that it’s normally a precursor to marriage. Regarding social class, individuals in the lower social classes, typically grouped among the poor in the society are more likely to cohabit as compared to those high up the social ladder. This could be because of the expenses involved in conducting marriages or may in itself be a form of survival, i.e. convenient cohabitation. People from poorer backgrounds and with less educational attainment tend to delay getting into a marriage and are hence more likely to cohabit. Concerning gender, men are more liable to cohabit as compared to women. As noted by Wu (20), men frequently tend to marry women who are much younger than themselves and hence for this reason more often enters into marriage later in life. Being unmarried for a longer time places them at a high risk of getting into a cohabitation relationship compared to women. Black people are more likely to cohabit as compared to whites. Cohabitation is more often the first choice of union among black folks as compared to the white folks. This may be mainly because of the limited economic opportunities resulting in high rates of impoverishment among black households as compared to white households. Regarding religion, individuals who are more religious are more likely to disapprove of cohabitation as compared to those who are less religiously inclined. This is more often because most religious texts teach of chastity before marriages, and hence people who subscribe to them are more likely to frown upon cohabitation, as it’s regarded as something that is unclean.
Is cohabitation the right thing to do?
There are varied opinions as to whether cohabitation is wrong or right given that more often it’s a matter of personal choice. I am of the view that cohabitation is wrong by virtue of the following reasons.
Marital stability
Cohabitation has been shown to negatively affect the longevity and quality of marriage (Armin and Thornton 366-367). Most marriages that were preceded by cohabitation have higher rates of divorces. This has been attributed to the selection factor that hypothesis that the characteristics that make people more likely to cohabit are the same characteristics that also make them more likely to divorce. Cohabiters more often exhibit individualistic attitudes that reduces their levels of commitment to marital relationships and makes them more likely to seek for divorce when confronted by marital difficulties. The other hypothesis attributed to the high divorce rates is the experience factor that stresses that people who have cohabited are more likely to accept divorce as compared to other methods of marital conflict resolution. This is mainly because the cohabita...