Marriage and Cohabitation
It is not clear that legally or religiously formalized marriages are associated with better outcomes than long-term cohabitation. Part of the issue is that in many western countries, married couples will have cohabited before marrying, so that the stability of the resulting marriage might be attributable to the cohabitation having worked.
"Because we now have the acceptance of long-term cohabitation, people who go into marriage and stay in marriage are a more homogenous group. They are people who believe in certain things that contribute to stability. So the selection effect is really important. Yes, it's true that married couples on average stay together longer than cohabiting couples. But cohabitation is such an unhelpful word, because it covers a whole ragbag of relationships, so it's not really comparable. We're better off talking about formal and informal marriages: those that have legal certificates, and those that don't. Is there any difference between a formal and informal marriage? If we really compare like with like, I'm not sure you'd see much difference."
Read more about this topic: Marriage Gap
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or cohabitation:
“Either marriage is a destiny, I believe, or there is no sense in it at all, it’s a piece of humbug.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)