According to recent studies, there are more non-married households in America than married households. A significant percentage of that first category include homosexual couples and households headed by single people, but the majority of these non-married households are composed of heterosexual couples living together. Recent studies claim that cohabiting couples now outnumber married couples in America, as in other places in the world, particularly Europe.
The traditional institute of marriage, as these facts can attest to, has undergone a significant change in America in the past few decades as numerous people are choosing to forgo it in favor of cohabitation and often single parenthood. Many hail these changes as progressive and further indication of how significantly womens' rights issues have been furthered in our society. On the surface, this seems very obvious: for so many cultures and eras, marriage was the only option available to women. For our culture and era, it is not and Americans today can garner many of the benefits of marriage without tying the knot. Yet, before we celebrate too hastily, let us examine this trend a little more carefully and explore the roots of this issue.
In the February 19, 2007 issue of Newsweek, reader Peter Hartley of Golden, CO penned this statement “In terms of social purpose, marriage has not existed primarily for the emotional satisfaction of individuals who marry. Its social basis is not feelings but social responsibility for the continuation of human existence.” While Hartley wrote this statement in response to an argument for homosexual marriage, his eloquent insight is applicable to the marriage question as a whole. Marriage is a stable feature of almost all levels of human societies and cultures because it has proven to be the best, most practical way of raising children and keeping society intact, not primarily because it satisfies the emotional needs of two adults.
In marriage across time and the globe, two adults come together in a ceremony that is recognized as binding by the society and religious structure. They pool their resources and talents, typically the man providing for the family and the woman nurturing the children. Typically too, society and religion does not allow either adult to abandon the family unit except perhaps in extreme circumstances, and society and religion are also there to make certain that marital fidelity is maintained and each spouse adequately performs his or her roles. When the married couple grows older, each person continues to support and encourage the other, and their grown children step in to care for their aging parents.
Obviously and tragically, there have been countless examples of gross neglect, abuse, violence, inequality, infidelity, and heartache in marriages throughout time and culture. Yet, despite this, there is no other human arrangement for domestic life and child rearing that is superior to marriage. While cohabitation can resemble marriage in many aspects, it falls short of this ideal in several specific ways.
Cohabitation without the binding act of marriage is a frail and risky undertaking. While walking away from a cohabiting relationship is emotionally difficult, particularly if it is long-standing and also if children are involved, it is legally simple. There are no legal ties between two cohabiting partners, few societal mandates that would compel someone to stay with his or her cohabiting partner, and few assets to be divided up between the two parties. Marriage, in contrast, makes it legally difficult and financially costly for one party to leave the other, which can provide incentive for both parties to stay together and attempt to work through the problems.
Cohabitation, though widely practiced, is still not as sanctioned by society as a whole as marriage is. The reason for this is that marriage is essentially a social contract. A bride and groom must have witnesses to their union, even if their ceremony has no guests. Traditionally a wedding is a major social celebration, and the bride and groom pledge openly before a community that they will love, honor, and cleave to one another. The community is expected to take responsibility for supporting the marriage and holding the bride and groom accountable. Cohabitation, by contrast, is a private arrangement. There are no cohabiting ceremonies, and society is not invited to provide guidance and support for the cohabiting couple. In contrast, often a cohabiting couple stands against society, particularly members of society warning them against the dangers of cohabitation.
The third inherent problem with cohabitation is that it is a phenomenon that largely benefits men much more than it benefits women and children. Marriage, by and large, does not offer men a great deal of tangible benefits. It does provide men with domestic comfort, stability, and society-approved sexual access, but when a man takes for himself a wife, he essentially binds himself to a lifetime of financial commitment. Traditionally, a husband must care for his wife as long as she lives and must provide for his children until they are of age, and these responsibilities are staggering. Marriage largely prevents him from exploration, from indiscriminant sexual activity, from the freedom to live a self-focused and unencumbered life.
This is not to discount the burdens that women must bear in marriage at all, but historically and culturally, marriage provided women with a great deal more tangible benefits than men since women did not have the freedoms that men had. Marriage, for women, provided support and subsistence, a roof over their heads, food, clothing, and the continuation of such things, necessities that women usually could not acquire on their own. Marriage meant that a woman had a man to protect her and to elevate her place in society, since women traditionally did not have as high standing as men. Marriage also meant that any children she bore would be cared for and raised properly. Marriage in essence was a protection for women and their children.
Children benefit the most from marriage. Raising children is an enormously difficult undertaking and, as any single parent can attest to, making a living and raising children is staggering difficult. It only makes practical sense for two adults to team up together to share the burdens and joys of child rearing. Taking it a step further, most societies determined that women were better suited to the task of managing the household while men were best at providing for the family. Children then benefits enormously from having both parents carrying out their respective roles rather than one parent attempting to do both.
Cohabitation, in essence, allows men and women, but primarily men, many of the benefits of marriage without the binding nature of marriage. Men can have the sexual partner, the domestic situation, and the comfort of marriage without taking that crucial step to committing permanently to one partner. While we as modern people hail the fact that men and women can now choose partners based on love and mutual interests, leave partners that prove to be violent or emotionally unstable, or simply choose to not marry at all, we would do well to recognize the enormous positive impact traditional marriage has on a family and a culture as a whole.
