A review by Dér Stépanos Dingilian, Ph. D. © 2000

    According to a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) special presentation, there is a growing trend in America of couples cohabitating, ‘living-together’ without marrying. It is our intent to inform the reader of some of the findings presented during that program so you may have the opportunity to reflect on that topic and respond.

    According to the program, 45% of today’s marriages end up in divorce. This is one of the main reasons that is motivating young people into choosing to cohabitate rather than make the lifetime commitment to marry. In the past, cohabitating may have been looked upon by the business community as ‘economically’ unstable. Yet, today’s cohabitating couples sometimes combine their earning-powers and purchase a house together. The cohabitating couple’s relationship may have also been said to be unsound for raising a family. Yet today’s cohabitating couples also have children together. In short, these couples see their life together as more than just a fleeting relationship.

    Unfortunately, although the couple sees their commitment together as more than passing, they also view it as less than a full commitment. If this sounds ambivalent, confusing and uncertain, it actually is so for these young people. According to this TV special, those forming cohabitating partnerships have a number of background experiences in common. First, many of these cohabitating couples have parents who divorced after ten or twenty years of marriage. Thus, by cohabitating they are expressing skepticism and doubt of their parents’ relationship and commitment.

    Second, cohabitating is becoming more popular among men and women because there is no longer a need to depend on a committed partner for financial, physical or emotional needs, or general daily chores such as cooking and cleaning. As a result, young people feel they have a greater choice, longer time to choose a soul mate and less of a need to make a full commitment. “Let’s wait and see” is the general attitude. The program pointed out: “They expect to invest less into the relationship and clearly they receive less!”

    Third, cohabitating as well as changing partners has been popularized by the entertainment industry, according to this program. Although obviously not all movie stars and athletes cohabitate, but as a population they have the highest rate. Furthermore, their unions and separations receive a great deal of media attention. Thus, the rise in popularity of entertainment and athletics celebrities has led to the gradual acceptance of their way of life, including cohabitating.

    Here are some of the cited consequences, although mostly not positive. First, most cohabitating couples end up breaking up and then cohabitating again. Thus, their pattern of cohabitating continues. Second, women lose more than men because men tend to want younger women as their next partner. Furthermore, if there are children from such a relationship, they usually stay with the mother, which then limits her chances of finding a compatible partner. However, this PBS program pointed out that the biggest losers from such relationships are the children. The child suffers from an identity crisis from two fronts. From a parental perspective, he or she is not clear as to the relationship between own biological parents and how he fits into their life and priorities. In addition, from a societal perspective, the child generally does not have a clear way of presenting the adult cohabitating with one of his or her biological parents. The program gave the example of a professor stating: “What will a child say at school on Parent Night: ‘This is my mother’s boyfriend?!’”

    The program also pointed out that among those who acknowledge to being a member of a Christian Church community, the number of cohabitating couples is significantly lower than those who don’t. However, it is still a significant amount. There is no question that Christianity does not approve of cohabitating partnerships. It is interesting that the cohabitating Christian partners recognized that their living together is actually ‘wrong’ and ‘sinful.’ Yet, they could not envision an alternative way of life. A number of mainline Christian denomination pastors pointed out that they had no choice but to approach these relationships on a pastoral basis as opposed to completely rejecting them as a ‘family.’ Why? At least for the sake of the children from such partnerships who end up stranded spiritually when such a relationship breaks-up. These pastors also stated that by maintaining their ties they hoped that someday they could convince these young people to marry in the Church.

    From our perspective it is truly remarkable that for the Christian Faith today, one of the main challenges and tasks is not just to encourage people, especially the young, to live alone and serve God, but also to encourage them to live as a married couple and serve God together!  This upholds that holy and exemplary life of marriage and commitment as demonstrated by Christ, the groom, and his bride, the Church!

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